Every language has taken fire as the symbol of love and emotion. We
speak so naturally of warm love, fervent feeling, glowing earnestness,
ardent enthusiasm and the like, that we are scarcely aware of using
figurative language. We do not usually ascribe emotion to God, but
surely the deepest and most sacred of the senses in which it is true
that fire is His emblem, is that He is love. His fire is in Zion. He
dwells in His Church, a storehouse of blazing love, heated seventy
times seven hotter than any creatural love, and pouring out its ardours
for the quickening and gladdening of all who walk in the light of that
fire, and thaw their coldness at its blaze.
Then, if so, how comes it that so many Christian Churches are
ice-houses instead of furnaces? How comes it that they who profess to
live in the Zion where this fire flames are themselves so cold? If
God's blazing furnace is in Jerusalem, it should send the thermometer
up in all the houses of the city. But what a strange contradiction it
is for men to be in God's Church, the very focus and centre of His
burning love, and themselves to be almost down below zero in their
temperature! The Christian Church ought to be all aflame in all its
members, with the fire of love kindled and alight from God Himself.
Every community of Christian people ought to radiate warmth and light
which it has absorbed from its present God. Our love ought to answer
His, and, being caught and kindled from that mighty fire, should throw
back to its source some of the heat received, in fervours of reflected
love, and should pour the rest beneficently on all around. Love to God
and love to man are regarded in Christian morals as beams of the same
fire, only travelling in different directions. But what a miserable
contrast to such an ideal the reality in so many of our churches is! A
fiery furnace with its doors hung with icicles is no greater a
contradiction and anomaly than a Christian Church or a single soul,
which professes to have been touched by the infinite loving kindness of
God, and yet lives as cold and unmoved as we do. The 'Lord's fire is in
Zion.' Are there any tokens of that fire amongst us, in our own hearts
and in our collective temperature as Christian Churches?
There is no religion worth calling so which has not warmth in it. We
hear a great deal from people against whom I do not wish to say a word,
about the danger of an 'emotional Christianity.' Agreed, if by that
they mean a Christianity which has no foundation for its emotion in
principle and intelligence; but not agreed if they mean to recommend a
Christianity which professes to accept truths that might kindle a soul
beneath the ribs of death and make the dumb sing, and yet is never
moved one hair's-breadth from its quiet phlegmaticism. There is no
religion without emotion. Of course it must be intelligent emotion,
built upon the acceptance of divine truth, and regulated and guided by
that, and so consolidated into principle, and it must be emotion which
works for its living, and impels to Christian conduct. These two
provisoes being attended to, then we can safely say that warmth is the
test of life, and the readings of the thermometer, which measure the
fervour, measure also the reality of our religion. A cold Christian is
a contradiction in terms. If the adjective is certainly applicable, I
am afraid the applicability of the noun is extremely doubtful. If there
is no fire, what is there? Cold is death.
We want no flimsy, transitory, noisy, ignorant, hysterical agitation.
Smoke is not fire. If the temperature were higher, and the fire more
wisely fed, there would not be any. But we do want a more obvious and
powerful effect of their solemn, glorious, and heart-melting beliefs on
the affections and emotions of professing Christians, and that they may
be more mightily moved by love, to all heroisms and service and
enthusiasms and to consecration which shall in some measure answer to
the glowing heart of that fire of God which flames in Zion.
II. God's revelation of Himself, and presence in His Church, are an
instrument of cleansing.
Fire purifies. In our great cities now there are 'disinfecting ovens,'
where infected articles are taken, and exposed to a high temperature
which kills the germs of disease, so that tainted things come out sweet
and clean. That is what God's furnace in Zion is meant to do for us.
The true way of purifying is by fire. To purify by water, as John the
Baptist saw and said, is but a poor, cold way of getting outward
cleanliness. Water cleanses the surface, and becomes dirty in the
process. Fire cleanses within and throughout, and is not tainted
thereby. You plunge some foul thing into the flame, and, as you look,
the specks and spots melt out of it. Raise the temperature, and you
kill the poison germs. That is the way that God cleanses His people;
not by external application, but by getting up the heat. The fire of
His love, the fire of His spirit, is, as St. Bernard says, a blessed
fire, which 'consumes indeed, but does not hurt; which sweetly burns
and blessedly lays waste, and so puts forth the force and fire against
our vices, as to display the operation of the anointing oil upon our
souls.' The Hebrew captives were flung into the fiery furnace. What did
it burn? Only their bonds. They themselves lived and rejoiced in the
intense heat. So, if we have any real possession of the divine flame,
it will burn off our wrists the bands and chains of our old vices, and
we shall stand pure and clean, emancipated by the fire which will
consume only our sins, and be for our true selves as our native home,
where we walk at liberty and expatiate in the genial warmth. That is
the blessed and effectual way of purifying, which slays only the death
that we carry about with us in our sin, and makes us the more truly
living for its death. Cleansing is only possible if we are immersed in
the Holy Ghost and in fire, as some piece of foul clay, plunged into
the furnace, has all the stains melted out of it. For all sinful souls
seeking after cleansing, and finding that the 'damned spot' will not
'out' for all their washing, it is surely good news and tidings of
great joy that the Lord has His fire in Zion, and that its purifying
power will burn out all their sin.
III. Further, there is suggested another thought: that God, in His
great revelation of Himself, by which He dwells in His Church, is a
power of transformation.
Fire turns all which it seizes into fire. 'Behold how much wood is
kindled by how small a fire' (R.V.). The heap of green wood with the
sap in it needs but a tiny light pushed into the middle, and soon it is
all ablaze, transformed into ruddy brightness, and leaping heavenwards.
However heavy, wet, and obstinate may be the fuel, the fire can change
it into aspiring and brilliant flame.
And so God, coming to us in His 'Spirit of burning,' turns us into His
own likeness, and makes us possessors of some spark of Himself.
Therefore it is a great promise, 'He shall baptize you in the Holy
Ghost, and in fire.' He shall plunge you into the life-giving furnace,
and so 'make His ministers like a flame of fire,' like the Lord whom
they serve. The seraphim who stand round the throne are 'burning'
spirits, and the purity which shines, the love which glows, the swift
life which flames in them, are all derived from that unkindled and
all-animating Fire who is their and our God. The transformation of all
the dwellers in Zion into miniature likenesses of this fire is the very
highest hope that springs from the solemn and blessed truth that the
Lord has His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.
IV. But, further, this figure teaches that the same divine fire may
become destructive.
The emblem of fire suggests a double operation, and the very felicity
of it as an emblem is that it has these two sides, and with equal
naturalness may stand for a power which quickens, and for one which
destroys. The difference in the effects springs not from differences in
the cause, but in the objects with which the fire plays. The same God
is the fire of life, the fire of love, of purifying and transformation
and glad energy to whosoever will put his trust in Him, and a fire of
destruction and anger unto whosoever resists Him. The alternative
stands before every soul of man, to be quickened by fire or consumed by
it. We may make the furnace of God our blessedness and the reservoir of
a far more joyful and noble life than ever we could have lived in our
coldness; or we may make it terror and destruction. There lie the two
possibilities before every one of us. We cannot stand apart from Him;
we have relations with Him, whether we will or no; He is something to
us. He is, and must be for all, a flaming fire. We can settle whether
it shall be a fire which is life-giving unto life, or a fire which is
death-giving unto death.
Here are two buildings: the one the life of the man that lives apart
from God, and therefore has built only with wood, hay, and stubble; the
other the life of the man that lives with God and for Him, and so has
built with gold, silver, and precious stones. The day and the fire
come; and the fates of these two are opposite effects of the same
cause. The licking tongues surround the wretched hut, built of
combustibles, and up go wood and hay and stubble, in a smoking flare,
and disappear. The flames play round the gold and silver and precious
stones, and every leap of their light is answered by some facet of the
gems that flash in their brilliancy, and give back the radiance.
You can settle which of these two is to be your fate. 'The Lord's fire
is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.' To those who, by faith in
that dear Lord who came to cast fire on earth,' have opened their
hearts, to the entrance of that searching, cleansing flame, and who
therefore burn with kindred and answering fervours, it is joy to know
that their 'God is a consuming fire,' for therein lies their hope of
daily purifying and ultimate assimilation. To those, on the other hand,
who have closed their hearts to the warmth of His redeeming love in
Christ, and the quickening of His baptism by fire, what can the
knowledge be but terror, what can contact with God in judgment be but
destruction? 'The day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the
proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be as stubble, and the day
that cometh shall burn them up.' What will that day do for you?