Where do you go for refuge? The Ancient Israelites thought they would be safe from the Babylonians inside the walls of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 22:19). They trusted in its strong fortifications to hold off the invaders, hoping Nebuchadnezzar and his soldiers would turn aside and conquer another country instead (Ezekiel 21:21).

But their real problems were inside Jerusalem’s walls with them: idolatry and bloodshed (Ezekiel 22:3-4), oppression of immigrants, orphans and widows (Ezekiel 22:7), all kinds of perverted sexual sin (Ezekiel 22:9-11) and breaking God’s Sabbaths (Ezekiel 22:8). By rejecting God’s Word and giving themselves over to all these sins, they had become as worthless in God’s sight as the iron and lead and tin that are often found along with silver when it is mined (Ezekiel 22:18).

So, how is silver purified? By melting down the ore. And that’s exactly what God said He would do to His people. Although they had imagined themselves to be safe from the Babylonians in Jerusalem, God said He would transform the city into a fiery crucible, turning up the heat on His people so they would be revealed to be the worthless dross they had become (Ezekiel 22:20-22).

And the sad truth is that if we seek refuge in anyone or anything other than the Lord, we will find the same sort of crucible. So the only question is whether we will allow God’s refining fire to burn away our sin from within us by the power of His Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11-12) – or whether we will eventually be burned up along with everything that is contrary to His Word and will.

Ezekiel 22:17-22 (NASB)

17 And the word of the LORD came to me saying,
18 “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace; they are the dross of silver.
19 “Therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Because all of you have become dross, therefore, behold, I am going to gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.
20 ‘As they gather silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into the furnace to blow fire on it in order to melt it, so I shall gather you in My anger and in My wrath, and I shall lay you there and melt you.
21 ‘And I shall gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you will be melted in the midst of it.
22 ‘As silver is melted in the furnace, so you will be melted in the midst of it; and you will know that I, the LORD, have poured out My wrath on you.'”