This is a sermon about suffering, a fast-moving treatment of Isaiah 48:10 which puts us right in the furnace of affliction. Spurgeon emphasises God’s purposeful wisdom and grace in bestowing trials upon his saints. Having considered the distinctive way in which God deals with his people, both together and individually, Spurgeon muses on the furnace as the place where we first meet with God, as a place which does not change the election of God, as the emblem of God’s choice, as the workshop of electing love, as the great school in which we learn election, and as the place where God’s higher purposes in election are revealed. Perhaps this sermon was prompted by trials in the church, or in the lives of particular friends, or his own distinct sufferings. Whatever may have helped to stir the preacher’s soul, the result is an address full of sympathetic wisdom, reminding us that the troubles of the saints are not without purpose and point, and that the Lord—in so dealing with us—is acting always in love, to work sin out of us and grace into us.

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