The Day of New Beginnings

Tempered Steel

 

I was recently wrestling with the many pressures that come with moving forward in God. The battle seemed unrelenting and I could see no light at the end of the tunnel. It was just about more than I could bear at the moment. All I could see was the wretchedness of my Adamic nature. And then a word of revelation came. The word spoken was “Tempered Steel.” With that word came an understanding of all that was happening. I realized afresh how the enemy emphasizes our weaknesses and exploits them to our own ruin if we allow it. I also realized that God allows this level of battle to come that He might use it to bring forth His sons.

Human nature has a way of continuing down a certain path until it’s diverted in some way. Human nature is a creature of habit. It will relentlessly revert back to old patterns and ways of thinking if left to its own devices. So God brings the fire. He exposes us to pressures that become so unbearable we are forced to appropriate what He says about us; we are forced to accept His word in our lives or perish. The battles will come over and over until we have learned to stand on a word, His word of Life to us and in us.

What does God have to say about us? Who are we in Christ? Satan will always emphasize the weaknesses of our Adamic nature to us, but the Lord will always emphasize who we are in Him. It has been said in the past that it’s all a war over the word. That remains true. The true refining fire in a believer’s life is designed to burn up the lies that have been sown into the Adamic nature. The pure gold and silver that is created in us through the refining fire is His word in our hearts, indelibly written there.

Mal. 3:

2  "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.

3  "He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness.

4  "Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years..

Now, what about this tempered steel? We are to be as tempered steel before the Lord. We are to have backbones of steel, able to stand against all the lies of the enemy, and prevail because we have believed His word. Paul said, “I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day (2nd Tim. 1:12).” Paul had a backbone of steel. He was not going to be moved from the word God had put in His heart.

Tempering steel is an interesting process. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia, the online Encyclopedia.

Tempering is a heat treatment technique for metals, alloys and glass. Insteels, tempering is done to "toughen" the metal by transforming brittlemartensite into bainite or a combination of ferrite and cementite.Precipitation hardening alloys, like many grades of aluminum and superalloys, are tempered to precipitate intermetallic particles which strengthen the metal. Tempering is accomplished by a controlled reheating of the work piece to a temperature below its lower critical temperature.

The brittle martensite becomes strong and ductile after it is tempered. Carbon atoms were trapped in the austenite when it was rapidly cooled, typically by oil or water quenching, forming the martensite. The martensite becomes strong after being tempered because when reheated, the microstructure can rearrange and the carbon atoms can diffuse out of the distorted BCT structure. After the carbon diffuses, the result is nearly pure ferrite.

In metallurgy, there is always a tradeoff between strength and ductility. This delicate balance highlights many of the subtleties inherent to the tempering process. Precise control of time and temperature during the tempering process are critical to achieve a metal with well balanced mechanical properties.

Notice in the above article that tempering is accomplished by controlled reheating of the work piece to a temperature just below its critical temperature. It’s “critical temperature” means the temperature at which it melts down. So, the steel is heated until it’s just shy of melting down. Does that sound familiar? How you ever felt you were at your melting point?

One very important characteristic of tempered steel is that once it’s tempered it becomes very ductile. That means it’s pliable. Not only is the steel made stronger through tempering, but it can be shaped and molded. It’s no longer brittle. Anything that is brittle is easily broken if enough pressure is applied. This is a Scriptural principle we should all be familiar with. God molds and shapes us into His will.

The most important emphasis of tempered steel is how it gets tempered to begin with. As mentioned in the above article. Tempering is a heat treatment. That means the fire is put to it. Years ago I worked in Ford Motor Company’s glass plant. Not only did we make windshields, but tempered or what’s called safety glass was also manufactured there. Safety glass is shower stall doors, patio doors, store front windows, etc. This type of glass is very, very hard, and when it breaks, it shatters into very small rounded pieces, not jagged shards that could kill you. I worked on the tempering line where they made this glass. The glass was loaded onto a conveyer which rolled into a very long oven that heated the glass just below its melting point. When it came out of the oven, cold air was shot down onto the glass through giant ductwork. That’s where the tempering took place. When that glass came out of the oven and was super cooled, the long sheets, some as big as 46 by 96 inches, was very flexible. When two people picked it up, you could see it bend. It went into the oven with no flexibility at all and could be easily broken. It came out super hard and very pliable.

This is the work God is accomplishing in His sons. He allows the fires of battle to come against us, He allows the enemy to touch our weaknesses as he did Job, all for the purpose of creating in us a resoluteness to hold His word in our hearts. David cried out in Psalm 57:7, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.” The fires of God are turned loose that we may become His word. There is no other way to temper steel and make it practical as a building material other than putting it through the fire. There is no other way for God to create sons except His refining fire. But we must remember, God is not refining our old nature to perform in an acceptable religion fashion, He is refining His word in us. “All” God is after is a people who will stand unwavering and believe what He has said about them, believe what He has said to them.