An embarrassing situation marked the passing of a well known
fire chief. None of the family has spoken to any member of his
engine company since the funeral. With the best of intentions these
fire men sent what they felt was a high tribute. It was a floral
arrangement with gold letters saying GONE TO HIS LAST FIRE.
Fire is a touchy word, and we need to be careful how we handle
it verbally, as well as how we handle fire literally. We need to be
aware that fire is both an instrument of hell and a tool of heaven. It
is both a power for good and a power for evil. It is associated with
both judgment and salvation. It can be destructive or constructive.
God used fire for the building of most of the universe, for our Sun
and all of the stars are great balls of flaming fire. Fire is also a tool
by which God will destroy the world. Fire is a symbol of God in the
Old Testament. He revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush.
He led Israel by a pillar of fire. In Heb. 1:7 His servants are called
flames of fire, and the Holy Spirit is symbolized by fire.
On the other hand, fire is used in a negative way also. A sword
of fire kept Adam and Eve from reentering Eden. Fire is a sign of
judgment. God is called a consuming fire. The lake of fire is the
fearful and of all who do not yield to the fire of the Holy Spirit. Fire
plays a dual role all through Scripture. It can be a symbol of either
heaven or hell. It can stand for fierce anger and hate, or it can stand
for warm and gentle love. As the song of Solomon says in 8:7,
"Water can't quench the fire of love."
This dual nature of fire leads to the paradox that the Christian is
to both seek fire and shun it. A Christian is to be fire proof, and also
to be filled with fire and ablaze with the Holy Spirit. The church
cannot survive without fire, and yet it must fight fire continuously.
Fire is both friend and foe, and the battle of life is fire against fire.
Thousands of churches have been destroyed by fire. This kind of
loss by fire has plagued the people of God all through history.
When the Babylonians captured Jerusalem we read in I Chron.
36:19, "And they burned the house of God, and broke down the wall
of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire." Solomon's
magnificent temple was turned into a smoldering pile of ugly black
ashes. King Herod rebuilt the temple, but it too became a victim of
fire. When the Romans took Jerusalem in 70 A. D. a soldier threw a
firebrand into the temple. Titus, the general, tried to distinguish the
fire, but it was no use, and the temple was again lost to the flames.
The people of God in New Testament times have also been
subject to great loss by fire. Nero blamed the Christians for the
terrible fire of Rome. Christians taught that the world would be
judged by fire, and so it was easy to cast suspicion on them as being
fire bugs. They were punished by being burned as human torches.
Fire became a common means by which heretics were eliminated.
Whenever we speak of making a bonfire we do not realize that the
word comes from the gruesome practice of burning people, which
was known as a bone fire. This kind of experience with fire makes
exciting movies, but it is not the kind of experience that appeals to
us. Most Christians do not have a martyr complex. The poet gives
us a realistic picture.
Movies about a Christian hero
Getting burned by a Roman Nero,
Seem to attack wide spread attention,
Especially so in the third dimension,
But the appeal of the film does not inspire
Modern Christians to brave the fire.
There is no good reason why any Christian should desire to
burn, as many martyrs of the past have done. Too many temples of
God have already gone down in the fires of persecution. Every
Christian is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is the
fire of God. With the fire within the Christian is to burn and fight
the fire without. It is divine fire against demonic fire. Every man is
facing one fire or another. Either he is being a channel of the fire of
hell, or he is being cleansed and motivated by the fire of heaven. T.
S. Elliot has recognized this two fold fire and writes,
The only hope or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre,
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
The destiny of every person is determined by which fire they
allow to burn in their hearts. No one knew this better than Paul. He
was a Pharisee who was being consumed with blazing bigotry, and
the flame of rebellion against the church of Christ, when suddenly
he met with a flame more fierce than the sun and he cleansed by the
fire of Christ's love. From that time forth Paul was a flame-thrower
for Christ. He was filled with the fire of Holy Spirit, and he became
a crucial weapon against the fiery darts of Satan. Paul was used of
God to keep Christian conscious of their needs to let the fire burn
within. He wrote, "Quench not the Spirit." This is a warning
Christians need to hear in every age, for Christian can throw a wet
blanket on the fire of the Spirit, and the result will be that the fires
of Satan will burn with greater intensity. If the fires of hell run
wild, it is because Christians are quenching the superior fires of
heaven. Leighton Ford wrote, "The greatest need of the church of
Jesus Christ today is to catch fire."
We need a Pentecost at any cost, for only the fire of the Spirit
can empower us to be victorious over the raging flames of hell that
threaten the world and the church. The Holy Spirit is symbolized by
fire because fire is the source of the 3 things that are essential for
abundant and victorious life. The Holy Spirit supplies these three
essentials that we want to look at. If you quench the Spirit you will
know it by weakness and defects in these three areas. First of all,
fire is essential for-
I. HEAT.
Take away the fire of the sun and earth becomes a giant iceberg.
Life cannot survive without fire and the warmth it produces. This is
true in the spiritual life also. Take away the fire of the Spirit and
God's people will become God's frozen people. Instead of being a
volcanic mountain the church becomes a snowcapped mountain. It
may be appealing to the eye, but with no power to melt the cold
hearts of men. It takes the hot lava of love to soften people's hearts
and melt them so they can be impressed with the Gospel. Jesus was
filled with the Spirit and had a heart of such warmth that people
loved to gather around Him. Billy Graham put it beautifully when
he said, "The multitude, starved for compassion, love, and
companionship, were attracted to Him as chilled men are drawn to
glowing embers." His very words produced the heat of emotion.
The two on the road to Emmaus said, "Did not our hearts burn
within us while He talked to us by the way....?"
Only as we have fire within will we have the warmth and
emotion to kindle others and cause them to be ablaze with the love of
Christ. This is the key to evangelism. Centuries ago Augustine said,"
One loving spirit sets another on fire." Fire is contagious and it
spreads. Drop a match in a forest and thousands of acres can go up
in flames. Drop an ice cube and only one square inch gets chilled.
That is the difference between a fire filled Christian and one who
has quenched the Spirit. A Christian who is not enthused about
Christ and the Gospel will never warm anyone else and draw them
to Christ.
Elton Trueblood in his book The Incendiary Fellowship says,
"Evangelism occurs when people are so enkindled by contact with
the central fire of Christ that they, in turn, set others on fire. The
cold Christian can never be a soul winner. If the non-Christian sees
you as dull and unenthused about your faith, he will write you off as
having nothing to offer. A British lawyer said, "The world does not
believe, because it does not believe that the believer's believe."
Our words and actions must come hissing hot from a heart filled
with the fire of the Spirit, or we leave the world cold. Examine your
life and ask yourself, do I impress anyone as being enthused about
my Lord? Do people know I have an enter glow when I consider my
Savior? Do they know I am thrilled and excited about God' love
and His purpose for my life? Have I allowed the pressure of the
world to smother the flame of enthusiasm for Christ? Sad is the
poem of Lord Byron who wrote in anguish of his spiritual decay:
I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the soul of my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as gray as my head.
This can happen to anyone, and that is why Paul warns us not to
quench the Spirit. Let the fire burn and feed it, for a fire not fed will
go out. Christians need to add fuel to the fire day by day that they
might be consistently warm of heart and emotionally enthused. An
unknown poet wrote,
Give us a militant spirit, Lord,
Come, set our spirit on fire.
Give us a passion to share thy Word;
Give us consuming desire.
Give us a flaming and burning zeal,
Moving us forward and on.
Help us the urgency, Lord, to feel,
Till greater victory is won.
Dr. Kirsopp Lake has written, "Early Christianity succeeded by
the contagion of an enthusiasm." This is just another way of saying
that they let the fire burn. They did not quench the Spirit, but let
the heat of love warm their own hearts so that others could not help
but be warmed. If this heat is no present in our lives then we are
quenching the Spirit. The second value for which fire is essential is-
II. LIGHT.
Take away the light and man is blind to all beauty and truth.
Take away the fire and spirit and man is left in the darkness of
ignorance and shut off from the truth of God. As he refers to the
emotional nature, so light refers to the intellectual nature of man.
The fire of the Holy Spirit is essential for the head as well as the
heart. Theophylact wrote, "In the night of this life God gave us the
Spirit for a light." The Spirit bears witness to the truth, and he
illuminates the Word of God for the mind. Without the light of His
fire the mind cannot discern the will of God. Billy Graham wrote,
"When the disciples were baptized with fire on the day of Pentecost,
their intellects were sharpened, their understanding was quickened,
and their powers of comprehension were transformed."
The disciples had a balance of heat and light. Emotion ran high,
but it was always under the control of reason. Peter preached a
sermon of such powerful logic, and with such persuasive facts of
history that 3000 were compelled by the evidence to bow to Christ as
Lord. A sharp critical and alert mind is not inconsistent with
burning enthusiasm. Many tend to set up the heart and head as
opponents, and create a battle between emotions and the intellect,
but the Bible unites them. They are allies, and are meant to work
together. When one seeks to go it alone the balanced life is lost, and
there is trouble.
In verse 21 Paul says to test everything. He means that we are
to use our heads and not get so enthused about everything spiritual
that we forget to use sound judgment. All emotion and enthusiasm
that is truly of the Spirit will conform to the truth of God's
revelation. Charles Finny saw the Holy Spirit work in revivals as
much as any man in history, but he also saw the danger of too much
heat and not enough light. He wrote, "Sometimes I have seen a
burst-a real tornado of feeling in a revival; but in such cases, truth
loses its hold on the minds of the people; they are too much excited
to take sober views of the truth and of the moral duties it inculcates.
....It is always well to avoid that measure of excitement which throws
the mind from its balance and renders its perceptions of truth
obscure or fitful."
People must see that we are enthused to be attracted to Christ,
but they must also see that our enthusiasm is based on solid ground.
We must have a reason to give for the hope within us, and the reason
must be sound and appealing to the mind. Truth is the means by
which the Holy Spirit moves us and uses us. He is the Spirit of truth.
Close your mind to truth and you quench the Spirit, and you lose the
light of His fire. Whenever a Christian has the pride to say he
knows enough of the Bible to get by he quenches the Spirit.
Whenever a Christian pretends to know the last word on a difficult
biblical subject and closes his mind to new perspectives, he quenches
the Spirit. When we judge a person, group, book or theological
system as having no light when we have not studied it, then we are
quenching the Spirit.
Charles Finny warns, "The Spirit is quenched by indulging
prejudice. Whenever the mind is made up on any subject before it is
thoroughly canvassed, that mind is shut against the truth and the
Spirit is quenched." A Christian whose mind is not open to
conviction and new ideas and truth has thrown a wet blanket on the
fire of the Spirit. He is saying that he needs no further light. Show
me a Christian who is satisfied with what he knows, and I'll show
you an iceberg devoid of both heat and light. God forbid that any of
us should be content to be cold and indifferent while the fires of hell
are busy burning. Only the fire of the Spirit can defeat those
demonic flames. Let our prayer be that of Ralph Cushman.
Set us afire, Lord, stir us, we pray!
While the world perishes, we go our way.
Purposeless, passionless, day after day.
Set us afire, Lord, stir us, we pray.
We need fire for heat, and we need fire for light, but thirdly we
also need the fire of the Spirit for-
III. POWER.
Fire the source of most of the power that is made man what he is.
Man is the animal that has made friends with fire said Henry Van
Dyke. Atomic power is fire power. The power that takes astronauts
into space is fire power. The source of power for most industry is
fire power. Fire is power and that is why the Holy Spirit, who is
referred to nearly 300 times in the New Testament alone, is
constantly associated with power. The fire power of the Christian is
dependent upon his being filled with the Spirit. Heat and light are
forms of power, but they are ineffective if there is not enough power
to move the will. Cannon Fremantle said, "It is not enough that
religion should be merely capable of defense. It must lead and
inspire or else it dies."
We need fire of sufficient power to do more than warm our own
hearts and open our own eyes to truth. We need fire that is
contagious, and fire that will move us to labors of love, and which
will cause others to be kindled and become torches of testimony for
the glory of God. Shakespeare recognized this when he said,
"Heaven does with us as we with lighted torches do, not light them
for themselves." "Let your light so shine before men that they may
see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." If the fire
of the Spirit is burning in us we will be empowered to do work that
captures attention and admiration. If we tend to be lazy and
uninvolved in labors for the church and the cause of Christ it is
obvious we are quenching the Spirit. The Spirit is power, and so if
we say that we are too tired to labor for Christ then we are
quenching the Spirit.
Paul says in Rom. 12:11, "Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the
Spirit, serve the Lord," If you are letting up in zeal, and if you are
becoming dull and less radiant, and if you cutting back on your
service for the Lord, it is clear that you are throwing a wet blanket
on the fire of the Spirit. As fantastic as it sounds, we who can do
nothing to quench the fire of the sun can quench the fire of Him who
made the sun, and all the blazing stars of heaven. We have in the
power of our wills the greatest fire fighting power in the universe,
for we can refuse to be fuel for the fire of the almighty Spirit. But
we can also obey the first commandment and love God with all of
our heart, which gives heat. We can love Him with all of our mind,
which gives light. And we can love Him with all of our strength,
which gives power.
His fire will consume the world, but we can refuse to let Him
burn in us. Paul recognizes that God has given man this power, and
that is why he urges them not to use it, but says quench not the
Spirit. Let the fire burn he pleads. We need the heat, the light, and
the power that only can be ours as we yield to the fire of the Spirit.
Let our prayer be that of the hymn writer who wrote,
Thou, whose purpose is to kindle;
Now ignite us with thy fire;
While the earth awaits thy burning,
With thy passion us inspire.
Overcome our sinful calmness,
Rouse us with redemptive shame;
Baptize with thy fiery Spirit,
Crown our lives with tongues of flame.
What will you do? Will you quench the Spirit, or will you let the
fire burn?
