Take these triumphant words of our Lord about what He was to do
after His Cross, and contrast with them the world as it is to-day,
ay! and the Church as it is to-day. What has become of the fire? Has
it died down into grey ashes, choked with the cold results of its
own former flaming power? Was Jesus Christ deceiving Himself? was He
cherishing an illusion as to the significance and permanence of the
results of His work in the world? No! There is a difference between
B.C. and A.D. which can only be accounted for by the fulfilment of
the promise in my text, that He did bring fire and set the world
aflame. But the condition on which that fire will burn either
through communities, society, humanity, or in an individual life, is
trust in Him that gives it, and cleaving to Him, and the appropriate
discipline. 'This spake He of the Holy Spirit which they that
believe on Him should receive.'
And they that do _not_ believe upon Him--what of them? The fire
is of no advantage to them. Some of you do as people in Swiss
villages do where there is a conflagration--you cover over your
houses with incombustible felts or other materials, and deluge them
with water, in the hope that no spark may light on you. There is no
way by which the fire can do its work on us except our opening our
hearts for the Firebringer. When He comes He brings the vital spark
with Him, and He plants it on the hearth of our hearts. Trust in
Him, believe far more intensely than the most of Christian people of
this day do in the reality of the gift of supernatural divine life
from Jesus Christ. I do believe that hosts of professing Christians
have no firm grip of this truth, and, alas! very little verification
of it in their lives. Your heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to
them that ask Him. 'Covet earnestly the best gifts'; and take care
that you do not put the fire out--'quench not the Holy Spirit,' as
you will do if you 'fulfil the lusts of the flesh.' I remember once
being down in the engine-room of an ocean-going steamer. There were
the furnaces, large enough to drive an engine of five or six
thousand horsepower. A few yards off there were the refrigerators,
with ice hanging round the spigots that were put in to test the
temperature. Ah! that is like many a Christian community, and many
an individual Christian. Here is the fire; there is the frost.
Brethren, let us seek to be baptized with fire, lest we should be
cast into it, and be consumed by it.