TEXT: Luke 13:49-52
TITLE: THE FIRE, LORD, NOT THE JUNK HEAP!
The television personality, Arthur Godfrey, likes to tell the story of his acquaintance with an old blacksmith. He used to watch this man at his work, as he took each piece of metal in his experienced hand to examine it. Some he would throw onto one pile, to be worked on later. But others he would glance at and throw onto the junk heap.
Godfrey asked, “Why is it that you throw some onto the junk heap and some over here?"
The blacksmith said, “I can see that some of that metal will be useful when it is put through the fire. There is something in it that will let it go through the fire and come out refined and perfected. But the other metal is useless – it cannot take the fire, so I have to toss it over onto the junk heap.”
That experience made a lasting impression on Godfrey. It became symbolic of some of the experiences he had later in life. He recognized that many of the difficult experiences he had to go through were the very things that tested and proved him, and made him a better man. It became something of a motto in his life. When he faced one of these difficult situations, he would say, “Lord, the fire, not the junk heap!”
What could be so tragic as to be set aside and declared, “No longer useful to the Lord”? How much better to go through the fires of testing and proving, if in the end you come out refined and purified and able to be used once again by God - and used in a more expansive way than you had been used before. The law of the fire equips us for the Lord’s service.
A brickmaker knows that before he can build a house of brick, the bricks have to go through fire. And the Lord knows that before He can build a spiritual house, His building stones, which are human lives, have to go through the fire.
In Luke 12:49-52, Jesus speaks about this refining process under three figures: fire, baptism and division.
Fire
Fire in the Bible does 3 things. First of all, it judges. Jeremiah 4:4 says that the word of the Lord will come out & judge the people and cause them to repent, “lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your doings.”
Fire symbolizes God’s holy wrath coming down upon the affairs of men and judging them. This kind of preaching has fallen on unpopular days. We don’t like to hear about the stern judge, and yet that’’ the God we read about in the Bible. The God of love is also a God of judgment. He hates sin with a holy passion, so He comes with fires of judgment.
Secondly, fire refines. Zechariah 13 9 says, “And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested." And Malachi 3:2,3 – “For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.” We know what a fire does when it purifies a metal. It takes away all foreign substances. Only the pure metal comes out. That’s what God’s judgment does – it removes our impurities, it reduces us to just that person whom God can use.
Then, finally, fire transforms. This is the symbol which we get in Leviticus where the offering is laid upon the altar and is burned up. And what happens? It becomes smoke which rises amid becomes a pleasing odor to the Lord. It is transformed from flesh into smoke. This is a symbol of a transformed life. Fire does all these things.
Looking at His life ahead, as He headed toward the Cross, Jesus said, “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!” He longed for this process to get under way because this was necessary in order for His work to be fully accomplished.
Jesus still looks forward to the fulfillment of this. Where will it begin? Not ‘out there’ in the world. The work of cleansing and transformation must begin in the household of God. The impurities in the world grieve God. But the impurities in the Church grieve God even more.
The Church is supposed to be that wellspring of purity which will help purify the world. If that well is polluted, then God’s plan and God’s kingdom are in low estate. So He says, “Judgment must begin at the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17).
That was Jesus’ meaning when He came into Jerusalem, cleansed the Temple, and threw out all the moneychangers. Why? Because if this house was not right, if this house was not functioning with honesty and integrity, what could ever be expected of those outside? Until there is judgment in the Church, we should not expect judgments to fall on the world.
Can we say, as Jesus did, “Oh, that the fires of God were already at work in my own life – that the fires of judgment and refining and transformation were already taking their effect upon me”? Until that happens, nothing of lasting worth can come out of our lives.
While Paul was still a young man, he was a member of the high court of Judaism, the Sanhedrin. He was advancing beyond all of this age, so zealous was he for the tradition of his fathers. And then he met Jesus. His whole life was transformed. All of these things were submitted to the fire of judgment, refining, and purifying. The dross was purged away, and he could say, “I count every thing as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).
Baptism
“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained [how I am boxed in] until it is accomplished!” Baptism in the bible is a symbol of death and resurrection. There are at least 4 baptisms mentioned in the NT.
There is the baptism with water, first of all, where you are separated from Satan, sin, and death. They are “drowned out” in the waters of baptism, and you are raised to a new life with God (see 1 Corinthians 10:1, 2).
There is the baptism with the Holy Spirit. You find a new source of power in Him.
The third type of baptism is baptism with fire. That’s when many of the old things in your life are purged away, so the new life in Christ can grow.
Then finally, in Luke 12:50, Jesus speaks of the baptism of suffering and death; we can also call it a “baptism of blood.” “I have a baptism to be baptized with” - and His eyes were looking straight toward the Cross. This baptism is the death of my own productivity. My own life now can produce nothing. Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” Death and resurrection. Jesus looked at this baptism of suffering, this baptism of going all the way to serve and suffer for others, and He said, “Oh, how I am straightened, how I am held in, until it be accomplished!”
Our effectiveness is limited until we have this baptism of suffering and death. Until our lives become nothing, there can be no fruit. It doesn’t make sense to human reasoning. But it is God’s way. Can we say with Jesus, “Oh, how I am constrained until my own life becomes nothing, in order that God’s life can begin to grow up in me and begin to function through me”?
Are we ready in our own personal lives to die to privileges, to comforts, to personal interests, in order that someone else might get the life of God in him? Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 – “Death is at work in us, but life in you.” As we die to our own personal interests and privileges, that opens the doorway for life to spring up in somebody else.
Evan Roberts, the great leader of the Welsh revival in 1905-1906, was called by God to be the main spokesman of that revival. When he realized that God had chosen him, he went out into the field and wept all night, because he knew it was a sentence of death. He knew that from then his time was not his own, his comforts and privileges would be sacrificed. His whole live would have to the surrendered for that revival, and is still at work in the Church today, because a man was willing to take his baptism to death.
Years later, Evans Roberts was asked, “Will we ever see another revival like the Welsh revival?” He answered, “Who is willing to pay the price?”
That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” It means to follow Him in giving up our privileges, our time, our own pet pleasures, in order that somebody else might come to life.
No real life is going to spring forth from a Christian fellowship until that kind of a death is accepted. Even a small fellowship could shake the world, if its members were ready to die to their own privileges; if each individual would say, “My time is no longer my own, my money is no longer my own, my privileges are no are no longer my own, my family is no longer my own. I am in the hands of God just as surely as Jesus was when He went to the Cross.” That kind of fellowship would shake the world.
Division
Lastly, Jesus speaks of division. He said, “I did not come to bring peace upon the earth, but division.” Division is a basic principle of God’s dealing with men. He separates people in order to use them. This, again, is a painful proposition. He took Abraham away from his family in Ur of the Chaldees, saying, “To into the land that I will show you and be a separate people.” He took Israel out of all the nations of the earth and said “Be a separate people. Don’t mix with the heathen around you; be a holy people, set aside for my purposes.”
He says today to the Christian Church, “You are a peculiar people. Keep yourself unspotted from the world. Be a separate people.” That means purging. It means going through fire to become separate, distinct, looked upon as something different, even peculiar. If we are unwilling to be different, we can’t be useful to God.
Lord, the fire, not the junk heap! Rather the fires that divide, separate, and put me in a place where You alone have access to me.
What does division do? Division, when it comes about because of Jesus, keeps us close to Him. Only by separation from indifferent and ungodly influences can you keep close to Jesus. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you are a great tower of strength, can mix with the world indiscriminately, and stay close to Jesus.
This does not mean to take yourself out of the world. But it does mean that you never become a part of the world – a part of its system, its thinking, its way of acting, its way of believing.
Jesus never promised that the life of a disciple would be easy. He said, “In this world you will have persecution; in this world you will have the fire, the baptism of suffering, and division.” But He said, “Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”
This is the joy that Christians share. They are a company of people who are being prepared for His return. They are a company of people who are being prepared for the kingdom that Jesus is going to establish. He cannot establish it with pieces from the junk heap. He will only establish it with human lives, with fellowships, that have come through the fire. When the dross and the impurities have floated away, He sill take these lives, tested and proved through suffering and judgment, and with them He will build His kingdom.
Lord, the fire, not the junk heap!
