Alloys

As I was reading the Book of Isaiah today, the Lord used the following passage to trigger this article:

How the faithful city has become a harlot! It was full of justice; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers.  Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water. 

Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves; everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come before them.

Therefore the Lord says, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, “Ah, I will rid Myself of My adversaries, and take vengeance on My enemies.  I will turn My hand against you, and thoroughly purge away your dross, and take away all your alloy.”  Isaiah 1:21-25

Before we get into the spiritual aspects of this whole thing, let’s talk about metals for a bit to give us some insights from the natural realm which will hopefully illuminate what the Lord is saying about the spiritual.

Base Metals

Mixing various metals into alloys has been one of the most marvelous of all human inventions. Alloyed metals are one of the major reasons our modern civilization even exists.

The Copper Age

Back at the dawn of civilization (roughly 5000-6000 years ago), man discovered native (unsmelted) copper. Copper is extremely malleable, meaning it can be easily shaped. They discovered they could use copper, instead of volcanic glass (obsidian) and other rocks, for tools, weapons, and ornaments.

Later, they discovered smelting. This serendipitous invention probably was discovered after copper ores were placed in a fire and droplets of metal were later discovered in the ashes. This ushered in the Copper Age which took place roughly between 4500-5500BC.

Pure copper has a major flaw, however. Though superior to stone in other areas, its malleability makes it impossible to hold an edge well, a serious flaw when using it for a weapon or tool.

The Bronze Age

Along about 3300BC, some brilliant coppersmith discovered that adding 5-12% tin to copper made it significantly harder. The resulting alloy holds an edge far better than pure copper. We call that alloy “bronze.” Thus began the Bronze Age which lasted until roughly 1200BC.

The almost entirety of the Old Testament took place in the Bronze Age. All the warriors of that era all wielded bronze weapons with Saul, Jonathan, David, Goliath being prime examples.

The Iron Age

Along about 1200BC, someone finally figured out how to produce steel by introducing carbon into smelting iron. Iron is far more abundant than copper, but more difficult to process. Steel is far, far sturdier than bronze. Its superior edge-holding ability over copper made the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, and later the Greeks and Romans virtually invincible agains nations fielding only bronze weapons.

Since then, steel has been alloyed with yet other metals to make it stronger, harder, more flexible, more resilient, more rust-resistant, and so on. Point of fact: the elements chromium and nickel are alloyed into iron to produce stainless steel.

Other alloys of steel and other metals have blossomed over the intervening years — and they keep on coming!

Among base metals, alloys are king!

In the mean time, copper was repurposed to become an even more valuable commodity when electricity was discovered. The superior conductivity, malleability, and ready availability of that element became the backbone of all things electrical to this day.

Precious Metals

On the other hand, when dealing with precious metals (specifically gold, silver, and platinum), other metals mixed in with them are not considered benefits, but contaminants. These non-precious metals, along with other contaminants, are what we call “dross.” The less dross in a precious metal, the purer and more valuable it becomes. For example, 18KT gold is 75% gold alloyed with other trace metals such as copper, silver, zinc, lead, etc. whereas 24KT gold is 99.9% pure gold.

Analogies of God acting as a refiner of precious metals in His relationship with His children occur several times in the Old Testament. Here are some of them:

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 launderers’ soap.  He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver , that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.
Malachi 3:2-3

 The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the hearts.  Proverbs 17:3

For You, O God, have tested us;  You have refined us as silver is refined.  Psalm 66:10

 I will bring the one-third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined , and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, “This is My people”; and each one will say, “The Lord is my God.”
Zechariah 13:9

A widely used sermon trope based upon this concept has circulated among modern churches for years now. It goes like this:

A person once asked a goldsmith, “How do you refine gold?”

The smith replied, “I put the metal into a crucible over a hot fire. Once the gold melts, contaminants float to the surface and I skim them off. I then turn up the fire and more contaminants surface. I then skim them off as well. Rinse and repeat!

Then the questioner asked the goldsmith “How do you know when to stop?”

The smith replied, “When I can see my face in the surface of the gold.”

That analogy holds up extremely well. God indeed prunes us through His Word, by His Spirit, and allows the fires of trials and temptations in our lives to reveal to ourselves what/who we genuinely trust in and worship (He already knows our hearts and minds, so He personally needs no such revelation). His end-goal is Christ-likeness in our attitudes and conduct. This process starts from the moment we receive the New Birth and continues until we graduate into the arms of Jesus at our physical death or His Second Coming occurs, whichever comes first.

Our Lord doesn’t author those negative circumstances, I might add, but He is so perfectly and seamlessly redemptive the scripturally ignorant can be deceived into thinking He actually does.

Our “Drosses”

Overt Sin

This is where almost everyone jumps to conceptually when we discuss this kind of topic. That is entirely appropriate because this is where our innate sin-consciousness tends to land. Overt sin is typically committed consciously, to wit, knowing what is the right thing to do and then deliberately doing something else (see James 4:17).

This is our corrupted-by-sin flesh desiring autonomy from God’s control, all in the deceptive desire for “freedom.” Counter-intuitively, our humble submission to the Most High is what actually produces the freedom we so desperately crave.

Our gracious Heavenly Father loves each of us WAY too much to allow our innate selfishness to damage ourselves and/or others with impunity. He hates sin because

• It hurts Him (like a Father of a rebellious child),
• It hurts us (in ways we cannot conceive), and;
• It hurts those we interact with (far greater than we can even imagine).

That’s why our Heavenly Father always confers varying degrees of consequences on us for our rebellion. It’s also why we oftentimes find ourselves “lapping Mount Sinai,” repeating being confronted with God’s lesson plan until we finally “get it” and repent.

Idolatry

Idolatry and overt sin completely overlap. All sin is idolatry and all idolatry is sin, period, end of story. What distinguishes the two — at least in my own thinking — is this:

• Idolatry is worshipping someone/something else, whereas:
• Overt sin is our refusal to humble ourselves and surrender to the Most High.

You may disagree with me and that’s OK because what I just said is merely my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary! 😎

I’ve often opined that all of us as human beings are addicted to something; we’re either addicted to Jesus or something/someone else. All addictions are blatant idolatry on their faces. I’ve already written an in-depth 2-part series on addictions and recovery from them in my A Requiem for George Addiction Series, so you can explore that at your leisure.

Regardless of whether you agree with me on my distinctions or not, both idolatry and overt sin are serious contaminants which God is single-mindedly devoted to removing “as far as the east is from the west” from His children (see Psalm 103:12). The issues at hand are these:

• We become like whatever we worship. Satan (and/or one or more of his demons) stands behind every idol, no matter how overtly evil or seemingly innocuous it may appear on the surface. I once knew a woman a couple of decades ago who was addicted to foster-caring for infants. Her fostering was, of course, not evil in and of itself; her dependency upon it to supply her personal identity, value, and significance was what corrupted it into idolatry.
• We never sin in a vacuum. In each and every case, even when no one else is present or actively being victimized by our terrible choices, someone besides ourselves always gets hurt. Case-in-point: God promised to visit the consequences of our sins onto our children even four generations down the line (see Exodus 20:5 & Deuteronomy 5:9), so even our unborn offspring are damaged by our selfishness.

Cultural Bias

Cultural bias is yet another “dross” our Heavenly Father is constantly attempting to refine out of our thoughts and actions.

I’ve explored this in great depth in my Critical Thinking Series specifically Part 2 where I discuss cognitive biases, so I will also let you explore that content at your leisure. I’ll summarize all that by saying this is the #1 external impetus influencing our choices to overtly sin and/or indulge in addictive behaviors.

Let me summarize some of that by flatly stating there is no such animal as “cultural Christianity.” Why? Because “culture” as we know it is a corrupted-by-sin human construct which is always hostile to the Gospel of Christ to some degree or another. True Christianity as always been a counter-cultural movement from the very get-go when Jesus uttered His first message during His earthly ministry.

When Paul talks about “Do not be conformed to this world…” in Romans 12:2, culture is what he is referring to. The Greek word for “conformed” carries the connotation of being squeezed into a mold under pressure. And that is what every ounce of this world system’s voices (mass media, social media, cancel culture, etc.) is trying 24/7/365 to accomplish in each of us.

Religious Traditions

I was recently reading a book where the author said we should act Christianly, not religiously. Wow! What an incredible nugget of biblical truth! (I wish I’d said that. 😉)

Traditions are not inherently evil in and of themselves. However, they instantly become dross whenever/wherever/however they contradict the written Word of God. One case-in-point is Calvinism’s bogus teaching that God inflicts sickness, tragedy, and disaster upon us to develop godly virtue. As I said earlier here, God doesn’t author those negative circumstances but He is so perfectly and seamlessly redemptive the scripturally ignorant can be deceived into thinking He actually does.

This is where what both I and others call “man’s religion” once again rears its ugly head. Jesus spent a good deal of time and effort throughout the Gospels busting the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ chops over their traditions of men which had put both themselves and others into bondage.

Lack of Teachability

This form of dross is the most insidious of all we will discuss here because many church folk, for the most part, have completely abandoned Paul’s command to:

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed,  rightly dividing the word of truth.  2 Timothy 2:15

The wretched-quality of hermeneutics and profound scriptural ignorance pervasive within the Body of Christ is simply appalling, And I’m not limiting that statement to those sitting in pews; the folks standing in pulpits are frequently far more egregious offenders in this regard.

Eisegesis (interpreting the Scriptures through the lens of one’s own preconceptions) is endemic throughout the modern day Church. Any and all attempts to bring correction, no matter how humbly, gently, and graciously offered, are generally met with open hostility and vituperative accusations of heresy against any person who possesses the temerity to challenge their precious spiritual comfort zones. I know this from personal experience; been there, done that, got a whole rack of T-shirts. See my article entitled, “Where are We Going? And Why are We in This Hand-basket? — The Spiritual Perspective” for some in-depth insights into what is driving all that.

Generally speaking this one goes hand-in-glove with the form of dross we just discussed because the traditions of men usually influence — if not form outright — those erroneous preconceptions.

Why is this so dangerous? Because any believer so afflicted generally has zero desire to change, sees zero need for it, and will defend their right to remain that way to the death.

I’ve referred to this form of dross elsewhere here on Miscellaneous Ramblings as a “religious comfort zone.”

Any Christ-follower should be able to take any aspect of his/her positions concerning our faith and prayerfully question it, cooperating with the Holy Spirit as He illuminates the Scriptures to refine, correct, or even reject outright any position which doesn’t measure up to the letter and spirit of God’s Word.

In Closing

Like all my other articles, I have purposed in my heart to lead you closer to Jesus, both relationally and behaviorally. I prayerfully hope this article has provided some additional heat to your crucible to achieve that very end.

Thanks for reading!