“Is not my word like a fire? Saith the Lord.”
This text was written in reference to false prophesies that were being uttered in Jeremiah’s day. The words of the false prophets were meaningless and bereft of power. The false prophets were merely saying what the people wanted them to say. Their words had no fire in them, whereas Jeremiah’s prophesies were like a fire. When the word of God is truly preached, it will be like a fire. John Wesley once told the preachers of his day that if they wanted to set the world on fire, they had to get on fire themselves and the people would come and watch them burn. This is still true today. Fire consumes everything in its path. I remember seeing a movie years ago that was warning against the danger of forest fires. A man threw a lighted cigarette out of his car window. The cigarette landed in dry leaves and began to burn. The fire did not go out until it had destroyed miles and miles of crops, houses, and anything else that was in its way. The fire of sin is like this. It needs to be replaced by the fire of God’s word. It is a beautiful thing to see the fire of God’s word cut loose in a church. It has a tendency to change people’s lives for the better. We need to set Bible fires loose in our homes, our churches, our schools, and our nation and watch it burn. This leads me to a second point on this matter. Fire also purifies. The fire of God’s word is not like the fire that burns up houses and crops. It is like a fire that purifies and cleans things up. When God’s fire sweeps through churches, homes, schools and communities, it does not destroy, but it builds up what needs to be built up and cleans up what needs to be cleaned. Let’s take for example a man whose whole life has been wasted on profligate living. Just use your imagination and you can picture what the sins of this man would be. One day a Christian witnesses to him, he sees the light, listens to the Holy Spirit and accepts Christ as Savior. He begins to take the word of God seriously, and the fire of that word begins to burn out all of the old dross and the person becomes a new man, or new woman. Without the fire of God’s word, this would not happen. The world is in dire need of the fire of God’s word today. To a lot of people, probably the majority of people, sin is no longer seen as sin. If over 50% of the people say that something is no longer sin, then it is no longer sin. I call this “morality by polls.” The Bible calls sin, sin and thus it will ever be. I want you to understand though that the Bible is not just hard on the more visible sins. It covers all sins. These would include false pride and self-righteousness. Jesus was the hardest on the Pharisees whose prevailing sin was self-righteousness. The fire of the word of God will help us to clean sin out of our lives. In order for a fire to take hold someone has to light it. This is why it is so important for God’s people to read, study, and digest the word of God. Are you starting a fire? Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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September 2021
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