Led By Fire

Led by fire

Ex. 3:1-10

There had arisen a new Pharoah, who did not know who Joseph was. He realized that the children of Israel were a fast growing people within the nation, and that there were actually more Isrealites, then there were Egyptians.

So Pharoah appointed taskmasters over them, to try and break them down, by giving up the hardest of their labor. But the bible says, the more that they afflicted them, the more they grew.

The new Pharoah saw that none of the hard labor was going to kill them, so he decided to tell the people of Egypt, that every son that is born of the Hebrews, shall be cast into the rivers.

Moses is born, and hidden for 3 months, and then sent up the river in an ark. Moses was brought into the palace, and his own mother actually got paid to nurse him up in the house of Pharaoh.

Moses intervened in a fight between an Egyptian and a Hebrew man, and ended up killing the Egyptian. Pharaoh heard of this murder, and sought to slay him, but Moses ran to the land of Midian. Here he found a wife, started a family, and began a normal life as a shepherd, on the backside of the desert.

Enter the text…

God appeared out of a burning bush, in the midst of a fire, to meet Moses for the first time.

Lets skip forward down the road, a few years, and 10 plagues later, to Moses, In Exodus chapter 13.

Here we see directly after the final plague of the Passover, that the Pharoah finally let the children go.

Exodus 13:20-22And they took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness. 21And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night: 22He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.

So we have at the very beginning of the ministry of Moses, God introduces himself as a flame of Fire. And then just as the children of Israel left, and were encamped in the edge of the wilderness, God shows up again, in a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.

As we look deeper into the scriptures, we can see God appear many times by fire, and even earned the name by his people as being called a consuming fire.

One of the greatest judges, Gideon, laid meat, and bread upon a rock, and an angel of the Lord caused fire to come out of a rock, and consume the offering that he had made.

2 Chronicles 7:1 Solomon had made an end of praying at the dedication of the temple, and the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house, and the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the house.

Elijah –called down fire from heaven.

God spoke unto the prophet Jeremiah, and said is not my word like a fire?

And it later came out that Jeremiah said of the word of the Lord, Its like fire shut up in my bones.

Its reiterated several times throughout the bible, that our God is indeed a consuming fire. With flames that can set the coldest hearts on fire.

I want to speak to someone tonight, who feels as though their fire may be burning a little dull.

There are times in life, when it seems like you may not even have just a flicker of flames, or perhaps just some smoldering coals left in their fire, but the Lord brought me here to tell you tonight, just as Paul told Timothy, To stir up the gift of God which is within you.

When Paul said this, the literal translation is “add fuel to the fire that is within you.”

See the world may not understand the fire that is kindled up inside of you. They may not understand the passion, or the intensity that lies within.

But the joy that I have, the world did not give it to me, and the world can’t take it away.

It’s the fire of God.

On your long and cold nights, its only the fire of God that can keep you warm.

As we continue to look into the word of God, we see that God calls his ministers a flame of fire. The job of a minister, is to not only be a flame, but to keep the flames burning within others who are around them.