The Consuming Fire

Fire.

The word invokes images in everyone’s mind. Most guys have a strange attraction to it, and often enjoy playing with it until they are nigh scorched. For most of us, it makes us think of winter time and snuggling up close to a fireplace with a blanket and hot chocolate on a blistery day. The fire warms us, and the crackling of the wood soothes us.

That’s about as close as we want to get though. There are some brave and daring souls that light their hands on fire with hand sanitizer (guilty), or walk on hot coals, or even eat fire. However, we generally don’t want be that near to fire.

That’s because fire burns. It consumes everything that is flammable, and they are incredibly hard to put out once it begins.

Unfortunately for us, our God is a Consuming Fire:

“For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.” – Deuteronomy 4:24

“… Serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.” – Hebrews 12:29

Fire is certainly a recurring theme in the Bible: fire comes down from heaven to consume the enemies of God; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace and emerged unscathed; the offerings upon the altar in the tabernacle and later the temple were often burnt up. This is crucial to understand, because in the New Testament, we see similar pictures of fire. John the Baptist says there comes
One after him who will baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire (John 1).

You see, there are two baptisms, in essence, explained in the New Testament. The first was of water, the baptism of repentance and cleansing. To picture it, this would be akin to Noah and his family entering into the ark, as we, by death, enter into Jesus. The baptism of fire is then God coming down and entering mortal man. You see this picture in Pentecost: the Holy Spirit comes down, with wind and fire, and enters into the temple of the disciples. Every man’s work will be tested by fire (1 Cor. 3:15), to see what it is made of and to purify it. At the great judgment seat of Christ, those who are not found in Him are cast into everlasting fire. You will either be saved by the fire, or destroyed by it.

Practically though, what significance does fire have in our existence?

In Luke 3:15-17, John the Baptist tells of the coming Messiah, saying, “I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.”

Though this may appear confusing, John is speaking of the process of threshing wheat. When wheat is brought into a barn, it is beaten, with rods, animals, or a tool known as a tribulum. Through the beating, the chaff is broken off the wheat.

Then, the one who is threshing uses wind to blow away the lighter substance, the chaff, and burn it away with fire.

“But who may abide in the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver… (Malachi 3:2-3)” As we know, we are a holy and royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:5, 9), making us, in essence, the sons of Levi.

What does all this culminate in? What point is God trying to make here? 1 Peter reveals the answer:

“Where in ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ… Beloved, think it not strange the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers with Christ’s sufferings… (1:6-7; 4:12-13)”

This is what it all comes together as. That Christ, as the refiner’s fire, purifies the faith of His saints with trials and temptations.

You may not have noticed, but remember one of the modes of threshing? It was done with an ancient Roman tool called a tribulum, which is the root of the word tribulation. God desires to remove all the chaff, all the wood, hay, and stubble that still remains in our life, with the tribulum of tribulation. His fire of trials burns us, but out of it, more beautiful faith emerges.

The problem is that in America, we have not been taught how to deal with suffering. Even the smallest of trials utterly knocks the wind out of us. We have become lazy, fat, and enjoyers of comfort. The way of Christ is through the cross; cross means suffering. It is not easy: it is, in fact, a slow and very painful death. However, it is only through that cross that we find the resurrection life on the other side!

Our faith in America is weak and anemic. We do not know how the handle trials and use them for the growing of enduring joy. We do not know how to die to ourselves daily as Christ did. Rather, we live in the American Dream, whether you realize it or not. The world has told us that all we need to find fulfillment in life is a good house, a good marriage, a good job and a good family. Tack on Jesus Christ, and you get to go to heaven in the end, too!

Folly. That is not the way of Christ, nor the way of any of His great saints. You see the life of Paul? This man was battered, beaten, bruised, scorned, and stoned. And yet he says he glories in tribulation; he boasts in it. Why? Because the strength of Christ is evident in and through Him when he is tried by fire!
The fire of God is meant to prove us, but if do not enter into the refining forge, how will we ever emerge as steel or pure gold? Rather, we simply want to warm ourselves on the comfort God gives us. God wants to throw us in and burn away everything that is of the flesh and sin. His way is a way of death unto life, not comfort unto happiness.

If you only see tribulation as something to endure with a good attitude, you have become a stoic, and there is no real joy in your life. You’re missing the entire point of trials! They are meant to prove what is of God, not to cause us to harden and endure in our own strength! They are what make us more like God, but so often we allow anxiety or stress to enter in, and we fall to the ground paralyzed! Get up!

Stand upon your feet and enter willingly into the pressing fire of God, allowing Him
to form you into the man or woman He desires you to be! Only then will you find life and life abundant!