Furnace Bible Quotes

Our Lord has sovereignly ordained that our refining process take place as we go through difficulties, not around them. The Bible is filled with examples of those who overcame as they passed through the desert, the Red Sea, the fiery furnace and ultimately the cross. God doesn’t protect Christians from their problems — he helps them walk victoriously through their problems.”4

The words of the LORD are pure words,         like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,         purified seven times.

PSA12.6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold,         and a man is tested by his praise.

20But the LORD has taken you and  cbrought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt,  dto be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.

I remembered Robyn telling me the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how they'd survived: when the King chucked them in the furnace and an angel or someone went in with them. The furnace blazed all around them but they didn't burn. And it did calm me. I don't know if it was Robyn or an angel or even God himself was in the boot, but I was starting to suspect that whenever I wanted God, he was there. Only not necessarily in the form I wanted, or doing what I wanted...In the pitch of the black boot I clung to the image of a fiery furnace, and it wasn't the furnace or Hell either.

In all the operations of faith recorded in the Bible, there are no failures. The three Hebrew children didn’t come out of the fiery furnace scorched. Faith works. Faith succeeds. The Bible records no defeats related to faith.

It’s not illegal to pray. We can own a Bible. We can utter Jesus’s name without fear of being tossed into jail or killed. When we refuse to bow down to the idols of our culture we may lose our job. We may lose some friends. But we won’t be thrown into a fiery furnace.

41The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

Gary and Betsy Ricucci point out, “Our Lord has sovereignly ordained that our refining process take place as we go through difficulties, not around them. The Bible is filled with examples of those who overcame as they passed through the desert, the Red Sea, the fiery furnace and ultimately the cross. God doesn’t protect Christians from their problems—he helps them walk victoriously through their problems.”1

Though I am sometimes reluctant to admit it, there really is something 'timeless' in the Tyndale/King James synthesis. For generations, it provided a common stock of references and allusions, rivalled only by Shakespeare in this respect. It resounded in the minds and memories of literate people, as well as of those who acquired it only by listening. From the stricken beach of Dunkirk in 1940, faced with a devil’s choice between annihilation and surrender, a British officer sent a cable back home. It contained the three words 'but if not…' All of those who received it were at once aware of what it signified. In the Book of Daniel, the Babylonian tyrant Nebuchadnezzar tells the three Jewish heretics Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that, if they refuse to bow to his sacred idol, they will be flung into a 'burning fiery furnace.' They made him an answer: 'If it be so, our god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, o King. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.' A culture that does not possess this common store of image and allegory will be a perilously thin one. To seek restlessly to update it or make it 'relevant' is to miss the point, like yearning for a hip-hop Shakespeare. 'Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,' says the Book of Job. Want to try to improve that for Twitter?

and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man,  l clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow.  His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars,  from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and  his face was like the sun shining  in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But  he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and  the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

That peculiar feeling—it was only a feeling, you couldn’t describe it as an activity—that we used to call “Church.” The sweet corpsy smell, the rustle of Sunday dresses, the wheeze of the organ and the roaring voices, the spot of light from the hole in the window creeping slowly up the nave. In some way the grown-ups could put it across that this extraordinary performance was necessary. You took it for granted, just as you took the Bible, which you got in big doses in those days. There were texts on every wall and you knew whole chapters of the O.T. by heart. Even now my head’s stuffed full of bits out of the Bible. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. And Asher abode in his breaches. Followed them from Dan until thou come unto Beersheba. Smote him under the fifth rib, so that he died. You never understood it, you didn’t try to or want to, it was just a kind of medicine, a queer-tasting stuff that you had to swallow and knew to be in some way necessary. An extraordinary rigmarole about people with names like Shimei and Nebuchadnezzar and Ahithophel and Hash-badada; people with long stiff garments and Assyrian beards, riding up and down on camels among temples and cedar trees and doing extraordinary things. Sacrificing burnt offerings, walking about in fiery furnaces, getting nailed on crosses, getting swallowed by whales. And all mixed up with the sweet graveyard smell and the serge dresses and the wheeze of the organ.

and  e who came from the waters of Judah,  f who swear by the name of the LORD and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right. 2 For they call themselves after the holy city,  g and stay themselves on the God of Israel; the LORD of hosts is his name. 3 “The former things  h I declared of old; they went out from my mouth, and I announced them; then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass. 4 Because I know that  i you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass, 5  h I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, lest you should say,  j ‘My idol did them, my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’ 6 “You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it? From this time forth  k I announce to you new things, hidden things that you have not known. 7 They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’ 8 You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that  l from before birth you were called a rebel. 9  m “For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. 10 Behold, I have refined you,  n but not as silver;  o I have tried [1] you in the furnace of affliction. 11  p For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name [2] be profaned?  q My glory I will not give to another.

Prayer of Azarias.  This prayer had been cut from the Bible. But in the Vulgate, the Greek translation of Daniel, it’s inserted in the third chapter between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth verses. It was Azarias’ prayer while he was standing in the fiery furnace with his two friends, Ananias and Misael.

In this manner, the clock resembles the universe. For is it not true that our universe is a mechanism consisting of celestial gears, spinning ball bearings, solar furnaces, all cooperating to return man (and, indeed, what other, unimagined neighbors of whom we are ignorant!) to that chosen hour we know of from the Bible as Before the Fall?

Most slaves achieved status within the black community by winning the respect of their fellow slaves, not their owners. Indeed, slave leaders generally secured their high standing by virtue of opposing their owners, not collaborating with them. Many were connected with the new religiosity in the quarter, as preachers, shamen, and conjurers - men and women who could join the natural and unnatural worlds together, whether through African folk rituals or biblical injunctions. Others were healers and midwives, and still others earned the respect of their peers in the field or workshop. A few secured a bit of book learning and were able to read the Bible. All were enmeshed in the expanding web of kinship and spirituality - connections of blood, marriage, and belief - that bound slaves together. While they may have exhibited some personal quality, such as courage, intelligence, honesty, or piety, that their compatriots found attractive, it was kinship - a sense of belonging to a common family, on this earth or in heaven hereafter - that carried them to the top of black society and provided the basis for solidarity. Whether their social position rested on knowledge of the cosmos or the key to the corn crib, whether their authority derived from the Big House or the quarter, it was to these men and women - not their owners - that slaves turned first in moments of distress. And few crises shook slave society as deeply as the transfer from the seaboard to the interior. Annealed in the furnace of the Second Middle Passage and the cotton and sugar revolutions, a new generation of leaders struggled to express the collective aspirations of a people who were often divided by their multiple origins, diverse expectations, and increasingly differential wealth.

From the earliest of times, production of metal from ore (a stone) in the furnace was interpreted as an act of creation of matter (this explains why metallurgists were generally considered as men with divine powers). Interestingly, the name Cain derives from the Semitic root (QN) that formerly referred to acts of creation. Accordingly, it is not surprising that Cain is the common name of the smelters in ancient Canaanite, and that Tubal-cain is regarded in the book of Genesis as 'the father of every smith' (Gen. 4.22). The Kenites (sons of Cain), a small tribe mentioned in the Bible, have been identified for a long time as the Canaanite copper metallurgists. Bringing together data from many biblical sources reveals that this small tribe originated from the land of Edom, and especially to the area of Bozrah-Sela-Punon, the homeland of the Canaanite copper metallurgy. (p. 393) from 'Yahweh, the Canaanite God of Metallurgy?', JSOT 33.4 (2009): 387-404

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us3 from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.

When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin) and You are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy, so that athey take them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; 47if they btake thought in the land where they have been taken captive, and repent and make supplication to You in the land of those who have taken them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned and have committed iniquity, we have acted wickedly’; 48if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, and pray to You toward their land which You have given to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name; 49then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven Your dwelling place, and maintain their ccause, 50and forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all their transgressions which they have transgressed against You, and make them objects of compassion before those who have taken them captive, that they may have compassion on them 51(for they are Your people and Your inheritance which You have brought forth from Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace), 52that Your eyes may be open to the supplication of Your servant and to the

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, we don't need to give you an answer to this question. 17 If the God we serve exists, then He can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and He can rescue us from the power of you, the king. 18 But even if He does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold

Lead Us Not into Temptation” With this petition Augustine makes an important distinction. He says, “The prayer is not that we should not be tempted, but that we should not be brought [or led] into temptation.”212 Temptation in the sense of being tried and tested is not only inevitable but desirable. The Bible talks of suffering and difficulty as a furnace in which many impurities of soul are “burned off” and we come to greater self-knowledge, humility, durability, faith, and love. However, to “enter into temptation,” as Jesus termed it (Matt 26:41), is to entertain and consider the prospect of giving in to sin. Calvin lists two categories of temptations from the “right” and from the “left.” From the right comes “riches, power, and honors,” which tempt us into the sin of thinking we do not need God. From the left comes “poverty, disgrace, contempt, and afflictions,” which tempt us to despair, to lose all hope, and to become angrily estranged from God.213 Both prosperity and adversity, then, are sore tests, and each one brings its own set of enticements away from trusting in God and toward centering your life on yourself and on “inordinate desires” for other things.

See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17If this be so,  n our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. [4] 18But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” 19Then Nebuchadnezzar was  o filled with fury,

PSA12:06 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. PSA12:07

Harry Potter,” a voice says from my left. “Have you tried reading the Bible?” A woman, mid-forties, judgment scribbled all over her pinched, powdered face. Why do Bible lovers always have that constipated look on their face? Don’t stereotype, Helena! I do my best to smile politely. “Is that the book where that lady turns into a statue after looking back at a burning city after God told her not to?” I say. “And where three defiant men are thrown into a furnace and don’t burn. Oh, and isn’t there a gal who feeds and puts to sleep the general of an enemy’s army, and then uses a mallet to drive a tent peg into his brain?” She looks at me blankly. “But those are true. And that,” she says, pointing to Harry, “is fiction. Not to mention devil worship.” “Uh huh, uh huh. Devil worship? Is that like when the Israelites made a cow god of gold and worshipped it?” She’s enraged. “You would love this book,” I say, shoving The Goblet of Fire at her. “It’s PG-rated compared to the Bible.” “You,

6 The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in an earthen furnace, purified seven times.  7 You, Lord, will guard us;  You will protect us from this generation forever. 

When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to their enemies, who take them captive to their own lands, far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly’; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name; then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy; for they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out of Egypt, out of that iron-smelting furnace.

How wonderful it is to know that we go through no experiences where God is not there in divine companionship, and the hotter the fire the sweeter the fellowship. You know, I can tell you, folks, in my own experience, that whenever I get into a situation where I decide to take a stand for something and it’s the unpopular thing to do, and you start getting flack, you have this tremendous sense of divine companionship. It’s what Peter talked about when he talked about the fact that when we go through persecution, the Spirit of grace and glory rests on us. I had this overwhelming sense of the presence of God strengthening. And here they were in the fiery furnace in divine companionship. - Uncompromising Faith in the Fiery Furnace, Part 2 (Sermon)

Many a time before His incarnation, He descended to this lower earth in the similitude of a man—on the plains of Mamre (Gen. 18), by the brook of Jabbok (Gen. 32:24-30), beneath the walls of Jericho (Josh. 5:13), and in the fiery furnace of Babylon (Dan. 3:19, 25). The Son of Man visited His people. Because His soul delighted in them, He could not stay away from them, for His heart longed for them. They were never absent from His heart, for He had written their names upon His hands and had graven them upon His side.

Consider how the wildflowers grow: They don't labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! 28 If that's how God clothes the grass, which is in the field today and is thrown into the furnace tomorrow, how much more will He do for you — you of little faith?

The Bible mentions a number of events in ancient times where Christ is believed to have appeared to men long before his incarnation in Bethlehem… scholars call them Theophanies. Abraham is thought to have met him, as well as Jacob and Moses, Joshua met him at Jericho, and three Israelites encountered Him in a fiery furnace in Babylon.

Listen to a Trusted Voice The chances that we would be deceived by propaganda would diminish significantly if we spent as much time reading our Bibles as we do following the news. Scripture is a lens through which we see the world more clearly. Our ultimate authority is not a top cable news network or other major media outlet. We must look first and foremost to the one voice we can trust, Jesus Christ. God instructs us, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matthew 17:5). One of our pastors at The Moody Church was in the hospital with his wife for the birth of their first child. Suddenly, panic swept through the room when the baby’s shoulder was stuck in the birth canal. This young father became anxious. The doctor came over to him, looked him directly in the eyes, and said, “In a moment, this room will be filled with twenty people, and there will be a lot of buzz and activity. But just know this: We have been here before; we know what we are doing; and everything is going to be okay.” The father’s demeanor changed. Worry turned into hopeful anticipation. And yes, they knew what they were doing, and everything was okay. Their daughter arrived safe and sound. Today, when you don’t know who to trust in the cacophony of voices shouting for this point of view or another, listen to the voice that you know with certainty will always speak the truth. Before you turn to your smartphone in the morning, read God’s Word. Listen to His voice. “The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6). We are in a race, with people shouting all kinds of messages to us from the stands. And every runner seems to be headed in a different direction, arguing about where the finish line should be. We are distracted by varied opinions about who is in the race, who should win, and who will lose. Confusion runs rampant, and usually it’s the person who happens to have the loudest megaphone who is heard, though they may be shouting the wrong message. We need to remind ourselves that God knows the truth, and the closer we walk with Him, the more likely we will be kept from error. He assures us that in the end, “everything is going to be okay.

The believer does not allow himself to approach the Word of the Lord critically, but places himself under its judgement.

PSA12:06 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

I remember the long, sleepy mornings I spent at your side, watching the light shift through the stained glass. I remember those uncomfortable patent leather shoes, the rise and the fall of the minister's voice, the pungent odor of floor wax. I remember the look on your face during services, elated, confident, as radiant as a bride. You would follow every word of the sermon, nodding in agreement like a student in class. You sang the hymns with gusto, your voice sweet, but out of tune. Church was coal for the furnace of your mind... ...Back then it bothered me that I did not share your conviction, I could not revel along with you. You prayed often, sitting with your face towards the sun, eyes closed... ...It gave me a squirmy feeling. Even then I was in my father's camp, all the way. The bible stories were silly, Sunday school was a bore, the sermons contradicted each other. Sitting in the quiet sundrenched church I felt nothing. No power, no release. The hymns left my soul unmoved.

I remember the long, sleepy mornings I spent at your side, watching the light shift through the stained glass. I remember those uncomfortable patent leather shoes. The rise and fall of the minister's voice. The pungent odor of floor wax. I remember the look on your face during services—elated, confident, as radiant as a bride. You would follow every word of the sermon, nodding in agreement like a student in class. You sang the hymns with gusto, your voice sweet but out of tune. Church was coal for the furnace of your mind... ...Back then, it bothered me that I did not share your conviction. I could not revel along with you. You prayed often, sitting with your face towards the sun, eyes closed... ...It gave me a squirmy feeling. Even then, I was in my father's camp all the way. The bible stories were silly. Sunday school was a bore. The sermons contradicted each other. Sitting in the quiet, sun-drenched church, I felt nothing, no power, no release. The hymns left my soul unmoved.

what god is there who can rescue you out of my hands?” 16Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to answer you on this point. 17“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and He will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18“But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up!” [Job 13:15; Acts 4:19, 20]

Psalm 12 For the choir director: A psalm of David, to be accompanied by an eight-stringed instrument.* 1 Help, O LORD, for the godly are fast disappearing! The faithful have vanished from the earth! 2 Neighbors lie to each other, speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts. 3 May the LORD cut off their flattering lips and silence their boastful tongues. 4 They say, “We will lie to our hearts’ content. Our lips are our own—who can stop us?” 5 The LORD replies, “I have seen violence done to the helpless, and I have heard the groans of the poor. Now I will rise up to rescue them, as they have longed for me to do.” 6 The LORD’s promises are pure, like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times over. 7 Therefore, LORD, we know you will protect the oppressed, preserving them forever from this lying generation, 8 even though the wicked strut about, and evil is praised throughout the land.

The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. PSA12:07 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

36Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.* 37He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.* 40As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.