Skip to main content

Fire!

Daniel 3:1-30
Fire - danger, heat
There is, in God’s Word, a word of warning and a word of promise.
This is the way we are not to go. This is the way we are to go.
* “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).
* “The bush was not consumed” (Exodus 3:2).
* “Our God is an awesome God” (Rich Mullins) - we must never forget this.
Fire is to be respected. Our God is a holy fire. He burns away our dross.
* “Refiner’s fire, my heart’s one desire is to be holy, set apart for You, Lord; I choose to be holy, set apart for You, my Master, ready to do Your will” (Brian Doerksen).
* “O God of burning, cleansing flame, send the fire! Your blood-bought gift today we claim: send the fire today!... We need another Pentecost! Send the fire today!” (William Booth).
This is the inspiring and empowering fire: the Holy Spirit. “Give me oil in my lamp. Keep me burning” - burning for God.
* Isaiah 43:2 - “You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flame will not burn you.”
There were four men in the furnace of blazing fire - Jesus was there: “the fourth was like a son of the gods” (Daniel 3:25),
We go through many testing times, but we are not alone. Jesus is with us. He’s there with His grace: “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). He calls us to put our faith in Him.
* In the fiery furnace, the men were burning for God. They weren’t being consumed by the fire. They were shining for God. Their light was calling out to others.
Come to the light. Come to the Lord.
When we look at these men, we must look beyond them to the Son of God. Jesus passed through the “fire” for us. He was forsaken by God so that we might be welcomed by God.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A response to a comment by G. R. Osborne on Berkouwer’s understanding of the doctrine of final perseverance

In his contribution to Clark Pinnock (editor), Grace Unlimited (1975), G. R. Osborne states that Berkouwer, in Faith and Perseverance, pp. 9-10, “speaks of the time less ness of the doctrine of final perseverance, founded on ‘the richness and abidingness of salvation” (p. 188, emphasis mine). This single-sentence comment on Berkouwer’s view hardly gives a fair indication of the type of thinking found in Chapter 1 of Berkouwer’s Faith and Perseverance - “Time li ness and Relevance” (pp. 9-14, emphasis mine). Berkouwer insists that “the living preaching of the Scriptures, which offer no metaphysical and theoretical views about … ‘permanency’ as an independent theme in itself, does nothing to encourage ‘a continuity which is … opposed in any way to the living nature of faith” (p. 13). Berkouwer stresses that “The perseverance of the saints is not primarily a theoretical problem but a confession of faith” (p. 14) and that “The perseverance of the saints is unbreakably connected wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

"Praise the Lord!" (Psalm 104:1).

We have come here to praise the Lord. Why do we praise the Lord? "Lord my God, You are very great." God is great in power. His power can impress us, but it will not save us until we are touched by a special power - the power of His love. God is great in holiness. His holiness (Isaiah 6:3) shows us our sin (Isaiah 6:5). It's His love that brings us salvation (Isaiah 6:7). When we see the greatness of His love, we can truly say, "Praise the Lord."
Post a Comment
Read more

Berkouwer's Doctrine Of Scripture

Berkouwer insists that when “the concept of error in the sense of incorrectness is … used on the same level as the concept of erring in the sense of sin and deception … we are quite far removed from the serious manner with which erring is dealt in Scripture … (as) a swerving from the truth and upsetting the faith ( 2 Tim. 2:18 )” (Holy Scripture (HS), p. 181, emphasis and brackets mine). Berkouwer rejects “the formalization of inerrancy” (HS, p. 181, emphasis mine), “a mechanical, inflexible ‘inerrancy’” (HS, p. 265, emphasis mine), “a rationally developed infallibility” (HS, p. 32, emphasis mine). He does, however, seek to interpret positively both infallibility and inerrancy: “the Holy Spirit … does not lead us into error but into the pathways of truth … The Spirit, with this special concern, has not failed and will not fail in this mystery of God-breathed Scripture” (HS, pp. 265-266). When we consider Berkouwer’s criticism of “a theoretical concept of inspiration or infallibi...
Post a Comment
Read more