Melted Over
J. A. Gordon. Malachi 3:3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver… I stood in the foundry-yard. Great piles of iron, all ready for melting, were gathered there. I noticed one heap of columns, broken, bent, split, shattered. I went into the foundry. They were "tapping" the furnace, and the molten metal flowed out in one stream of fire, sending up a sputter of sparks, whiter than the stars. A row of men, on whose swarthy faces fell the strange glare of the fire, stood a little way from the furnace to catch the iron in ladles, and carry it off to be run in the moulds. I knew these broken columns would some day be cast into the furnace, softened, melted, to run out in a stream of fire, and be moulded again in tall, shapely pillars. In no other way could they be of use. They must be melted over. That very afternoon I saw a mother all bent and broken by affliction. She had parted with an only child. Just the Sabbath before had the earth been broken for that child's grave. I pitied that mother. How keenly her Saviour felt for her. And yet, perhaps, the only way to reach some elements in that mother's character, and change them, was through affliction. The character was not worthless; far from it. It only needed melting over. O, the pain of that furnace of suffering, its smart, its agony! But in just this way is character sometimes made over, its qualities shaped into the strong, stately pillars sustaining the interests of the Redeemer's kingdom. (J. A. Gordon.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. WEB: and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer to Yahweh offerings in righteousness.