DID YOU ever visit a blacksmith’s shop? Here is a picture of a blacksmith making a horseshoe. Cling! clang! the hammer comes down on the anvil. How absorbed the old man is in his work. Why? I think it must be because he is anxious to have a very good job when it is finished.
What do you think that fire behind the blacksmith is for? “Oh,” you say, “I know. That is where he puts the horseshoe; to let it get hot.” Yes, that is right. But do you know why he wants it to, get hot? No? I will tell your If you take a piece of iron and put it into the fire, when it gets very, very hot, it will not be hard like a piece of cold iron, but will be soft enough to bend when you pound it, instead of breaking. So the blacksmith takes a piece of iron and puts it into the fire. Then when it becomes hot and softer, he takes it out with his tongs and holds it on the anvil, while he pounds it with his hammer into whatever shape he wants it. That is what the blacksmith in the picture is doing. I want to tell you, children, what this reminds me of. Did you know that sometimes our wills are very hard like iron, and when we follow our own will instead of God’s will, it leads us into all kinds of wrong-doing, so that our characters become hard and bad like our wills. God does not want His children to be like that, so He must find some way to soften us, so that He can mould us the way He wants to have us. In God’s word fire is often spoken of as a type of punishment or affliction. That is like the blacksmith’s fire. When God puts us into the fire of affliction our wills become softened, just like the iron in the blacksmith’s fire; and then He is able to mould us according to His own will. Do you not want to try to follow God’s will, so that you will not need to be put into fine?
ML 06/19/1904