“He shall baptize you with fire” (Matt. iii. 11).
Fire is strangely intense and intrinsic. It goes into the very substance
of things. It somehow blends with every particle of the thing it touches.
There are the severe trials that come to minds more sensitive, to the
minds that have more points of contact with what hurts; so that the higher
the nature the higher the joy, and the greater the avenues of pain that
come.
And then there are deeper trials that come as we pass into the hands of
God, as we pass from the physical and intellectual into the spiritual
nature.
When they first come, we shrink back from their unnatural and fearful
breath, and we say: “Oh, this cannot be from the hand of a loving Father!
This cannot be necessary to me.”
And then come the pains and sufferings from God’s own hand, when He sits
as a refiner and purifier of silver, when He lets it burn, until it seems
that we must be burned to ashes, and we are, indeed, at last burned to
ashes.
But we must get the victory through faith. The moment you cease to fear
it, that moment it ceases to harm you. He says, “The flames shall not
kindle upon you.”