The Revelation of Jesus with Rick Sterling~

Melting Pot~

There are a variety of uses for a melting pot, otherwise know as a crucible. In olden days when candles were the primary source for light in a house, used candles were put in a melting pot so that the left over wax could be melted down and reused to make new candles. A blacksmith would use a melting pot to melt left over iron for reuse. A jeweler would uses a melting pot to purify gold or other precious metals with which to make jewelery. This was termed  "gold refined by fire" in Revelation 3:18. In order to make hardened steel, iron ore is placed in a crucible (melting pot) and heated in a blast furnace that removes the impurities, poured into forms and cooled. Then this iron ingot is reheated, hammer forged into a useful form, water cooled, and repeated until the result is a form of steel that is much harder than the original iron taken from the ground. The result is a strong building material.

The purpose of a melting pot is take 'like' elements and join them together, heat them to the melting point, and then use the result to accomplishe the purpose for which the result is to be used. 

It does no good to put candle wax in a melting pot with iron ore or gold to try to make either better. It simply makes them worse, unusable for any purpose. 

In John 17, the pastoral prayer of Jesus for His own disciples, Jesus prayed to His Father that His disciples with be unified in the truth. Jesus knew that they were not all in the same place, and that He would need to bring them to the place of unity in the truth through His words. This would make them strong and useful in building HIS Kingdom of the heavens.  The crucible of the fire of the Words of God are what makes the structure of the Kingdom of God strong enough to withstand the trials to come. Trying to join lies with truth only makes truth into a lie.