A CONSUMING FIRE

The passages before us remind us of an attribute of our God that is often forgotten in our day - that our God is ‘a consuming fire’, Deut. 9. 3. There are several different ways in which this aspect of the character of God is revealed in scripture:

A Purging Fire

God assures His people that the defeat of the enemy, and possession of their inheritance, will not be by their own righ­teousness, but that, ‘the Lord thy God is he which goeth before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them’, Deut. 9. 3. So it is in our day, the Lord goes before us and when we achieve the victory, it is only through His strength and power and not that of ourselves.

A Protecting Fire

The children of Israel were in dire straights with the Egyp­tians behind them, bent on their destruction, and an impassable sea before them. Then, we read ‘the Lord looked … through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyp­tians’, Exod. 14. 24. The Lord intervened to protect His people from the Egyptians by showing His power and His glory in the pillar of fire.

A Purifying Fire

The apostle Peter reminds us, ‘That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory’, 1 Pet. 1. 7. The goldsmith places the gold into the crucible with the intent of removing all dross, until he can see his image reflected. So it is in our experience. God may allow the fire to touch our lives, with the intent that the dross may be removed so that we might better reflect His glory.

A Penetrating Fire

The apostle Paul, anticipating the Judgement Seat of Christ, wrote, ‘The fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is’, 1 Cor. 3. 13. The wood, hay and stubble will be consumed, and only the gold, silver and precious stones will remain. What are we building for God in light of eternity?

‘Our God is a consuming fire’.