Come Forth As Gold

One of the most powerful statements from Job was this: “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).  The message seems to be one about the purpose of suffering—God allows us to pass through trials in order to perfect us or make us into “gold”.  Certainly this is a powerful statement coming from someone who suffered in just about every imaginable way: he lost his wealth, his health, his children, and many other things and yet he still found the faith to trust that the Lord knew what He was doing.  His statement is similar to what we sing as part of the hymn How Firm a Foundation: “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.  The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design Thy dross to consume, thy dross to consume, Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”  The Lord lets us pass through the fires of life in order to purify us like gold. 

                We find a similar message in other scriptures. For example, from Malachi we have these words of the Lord about the Saints in the last days: “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” (Malachi 3:3).  The Lord promises to refine and purify us like gold just as Job was.  And the Lord obviously thought this was important because He repeated it to the Nephites in 3 Nephi 24, and Joseph Smith quoted the same thing in D&C 128:24.  Zechariah was another prophet who spoke about the last days, and he said this about the Saints who would survive some of the calamities: “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God” (Zechariah 13:9).  To survive the destructions of the last days we must be tried and let those trials refine and purify us.  Peter spoke about this the Saints in his day that struggled through serious physical afflictions: “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).  Our trials that we pass through may be as fire but they will be “more precious” than gold in that they will, if we let them, refine and purify us.  Ultimately that’s what they did for Job who did “repent in dust and ashes” and “the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning,” and he did indeed “come forth as gold” from them (Job 42:6, 12).