Consumer or Consumed?
Hebrews 12:28-29
Hebrews 12:28-29
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,
29 for our "God is a consuming fire."
(NIV)
Deuteronomy 4:24
24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
(NIV)
In the summer of 2002 Tulsa Oklahoma had a burglary suspect that did something quite unusual. According to the KOTV television news, Edward McBride kicked in the door of a house, and grabbed a duffle bag full of electronic gear. As he left the house, a man working next door saw him and called 911. The police arrived as McBride was running toward The Arkansas River and he jumped in with the bag of loot. Mike Branson was fishing in the river and saw officers go in after McBride. Mike said, "They were pulling their stuff off yelling at him to come back in but the guy just stayed out there. The officers got in the water he [the suspect] went down once or twice, he didn’t come back up.” The suspect never would release the stolen items. The fire department recovered McBride’s body about thirty minutes later, still clutching his loot.
Richard Foster noted: “Nothing can destroy human beings like the passion to possess.”
All of us grow attachments to incidental things—things that are temporal—things that are familiar and fail to venture forth where God leads.
When we pray, do we pray
like a consumer
or
like we are consumed?
Do we live
in spiritual pretense
or
spiritually intense?
2 Timothy 3:1-5
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.
2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,
4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power.
(NIV)
There are some who have a form of godliness but deny its power! They have let the fire go out!
In the book of Leviticus, the Lord tells Moses that there was to be a continual fire burning among the people of God.
Leviticus 6:8-13
8 The LORD said to Moses:
9 "Give Aaron and his sons this command: ’These are the regulations for the burnt offering: The burnt offering is to remain on the altar hearth throughout the night, till morning, and the fire must be kept burning on the altar.
10 The priest shall then put on his linen clothes, with linen undergarments next to his body, and shall remove the ashes of the burnt offering that the fire has consumed on the altar and place them beside the altar.
11 Then he is to take off these clothes and put on others, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a place that is ceremonially clean.
12 The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offerings on it.
13 The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out.
(NIV)
Can you imagine how much work it was to keep a fire going 24/7/365? History records for us that the fire burned continuously for 860 years!
The fire went out when the people of God were carried off into captivity by the Babylonians. The reason they were carried into captivity was because they were no longer captivated by the fact that they were the people of God. They turned away from God, chasing after the temporal rather than the treasure of knowing God!
It is not God’s responsibility to keep the fire burning in our hearts; it’s ours!
Are you
a consumer of the things of God
or
are you consumed?
To consume means to “engage fully”.
A consumer simply eats all he can get.
There are a good number of people who don’t mind being touched by the fire of God, as long as it’s containable, or better said, controllable! As long as they determine its heat and intensity, they don’t mind being near the fire!
God loves to see the hearts of his people glowing towards Himself. God will never be satisfied just to touch you, he wants to consume you, (body, mind, soul, and spirit)! He wants everything.
Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician and philosopher. In his writings, which were entitled Pensees, he traces the logical progression of his thought on many subjects. But something happened to Pascal which was beyond logic and rational thought. After his death, his servant found a piece of paper sewn into the lining of his coat. Here, in part, is what he wrote: The year of grace 1654. Monday, 23 November, . . . From about half-past ten in the evening until about half past midnight. FIRE. The God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. Not of the philosophers and intellectuals. Certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace . . . joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. . . Renunciation, total and sweet. Complete submission to Jesus Christ. . . The God whom Pascal encountered was not the God of the theologians and scholars, he was the personal God of the Bible. Pascal did not gain a new theology, he gained a new experience. He gained confidence and joy. And when the true Pascal met the true God there was true surrender — sweet renunciation and complete submission — not as a slavish thing, but as one gives oneself to a lover. There was passion in Pascal’s experience that he described as “FIRE.” This is the fire of Pentecost. The fire of Pentecost is the presence of God, whom the Bible tells us sits on a burning throne (Daniel 7:9), lives in everlasting burnings (Isaiah 33:14), is surrounded by seraphim — flaming angels (Isaiah 6:2) and is himself a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24). Pentecost is when the apostles and other followers of Christ came into contact with the fire of God — so much so that it could be seen hovering over them.
Acts 2:1-3
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
(NIV)
We’ve worried so much about the tongues that we’ve forgotten the fire!
“I believe that tonight the world is going to hell fire
because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire,
it’s as simple as that.”
-Leonard Ravenhill-
God not only want to light a fire in you for Him! He wants you to become consumed by that fire! One of the best Biblical illustrations of this truth is the Foxes on Fire in the book of Judges 15:4-5.
Judges 15:1-5
1 Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, "I’m going to my wife’s room." But her father would not let him go in.
2 "I was so sure you thoroughly hated her," he said, "that I gave her to your friend. Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead."
3 Samson said to them, "This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them."
4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails,
5 lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.
(NIV)
Sampson catches 300 foxes and sends them out by two’s into the philistine’s fields; the kicker is they have a fire between their tails. Needless to say (these foxes were motivated).
At the risk of offending some animal activist, I am sure the fire did not simply give off a pleasant glow as they ran through the philistine’s fields. These foxes were on fire! When the fire hit the fur, these foxes had a mission! The fire changed them, they were never the same again. If there was ever a time when the church needed a fresh fire it’s today.
Vance Havner said:
“The early Christians did not need a shot in the arm every Sunday to keep them going. They knew Jesus and they upset the world and worried the devil and gave wicked rulers insomnia and started something that jails couldn’t lock up, fire couldn’t burn, water couldn’t drown, swords couldn’t kill. This world has never been moved by cold, calculating brass hats but by fools, with their hearts on fire.
You may belittle experience and speak of the dangers of emotion, but we are suffering today from a species of Christianity as dry as dust, as cold as ice, as pale as a corpse, and as dead as King Tut. We are suffering not from a lack of correct heads but of consumed hearts.”
I want to close with a real life story. It is about missionary John Hyde who went to India a little over a hundred years ago. John felt a strong calling to the nation of India and began to spend hours in an attempt to learn the local language. Then the day came. It was in 1892 that he boarded a steamer in New York bound for the nation of India. On the Ship, John received a telegram from a close family friend. He opened it hurriedly on the deck of the ship. The only words of the telegram were, "John Hyde, are you filled with the Holy Spirit?" John’s response was one of heated anger. He crumpled the paper, put it into his pocket and went to bed. Unable to sleep, he tossed and turned all night. He arose from bed in the early morning hours, took the piece of paper and read it again. He thought, “The audacity of somebody to ask me that question, ‘Am I filled with the Holy Spirit?’ Here I am a missionary, sincere, dedicated, leaving my home and going to another country. How dare they ask me if I am filled with the Holy Spirit?” Wasn’t he equipped for his call? After all he had received a B.A. degree, studied the language, was even on the way and was determined to pursue his destiny. Yes, he was on his way, but Hyde’s spirit was challenged by the note. After much soul searching, he fell to his knees before the Father. “O God,” he cried out, “the audacity of me thinking that I could pray or preach or witness or live or serve or do anything in my own strength and power. Fill me with your strength. Fill me with Your power.” John Hyde became one of the great missionary statesmen of all time. Why? Because of the Spirit which enabled him to face the challenges of his life in the power of God. Upon arriving in India, John found himself on the field with three women and one other missionary among one million non-Christians. It was time to begin to fulfill his calling and begin to pioneer in a new land. In many of those first years there was not a single convert. John was driven to prayer.
In 1900-1901, Hyde writing home prophetically tells what the Lord had showed him in prayer about the new century. That the new century would be a time of Pentecostal power and a double portion of the Holy Spirit would be poured out, that a great conviction would come and many would be born again. By 1908 – 16 years after his arrival in India – John Hyde dared to pray what was to many at the annual convention an impossible request: that during the coming year in India one soul would be saved every day. Three hundred sixty five people converted, baptized, and publicly confessing Jesus as their Savior. Impossible -- yet it happened. Before the next convention John Hyde had prayed more than 400 people into God’s kingdom, and when the prayer union gathered again, he doubled his goal to two souls a day. Eight hundred conversions were recorded that year, and still Hyde showed an unquenchable passion for lost souls. At the 1910 convention, those around Hyde marveled at his faith, as they witnessed his near violent supplications, "Give me souls, oh God, or I die!" Before the meeting ended, John Hyde revealed that he was again doubling his goal for the coming year. Four souls a day, and nothing less. During the next twelve months John Hyde’s ministry took him throughout India. By now he was known as "Praying Hyde," and his intercession was sought at revivals in Calcutta, Bombay, and other large cities. If on any day four people were not converted, Hyde said at night there would be such a weight on his heart he could not eat or sleep until he had prayed through to victory.
Are you a consumer, content to just present your shopping list to God and never ready know Him? Or are you willing to become consumed? William Henry, songwriter from years ago, stated it this way:
Lord, I would be wholly Thine,
I would do Thy will Divine
From the world of sin and self I would be free!
On the altar now I lie
And with all my heart I cry,
“Let the holy fire from heaven fall on me!”
Holy Spirit from above,
Fill my longing soul with love
Till the Master’s image all in me my see!
May me gentle, true, and kind,
Meek of heart and humble mind,
Let the holy fire from heaven fall on me!
Let the fire fall on me!
The fire of Pentecost consuming sin and dross,
Let the holy fire from heaven fall on me!
-from “Let the Fire Fall on Me” by William J. Henry
as published in “Worship the Lord – Hymnal of the Church of God”
(Warner Press 1989)
