Once upon a time I went camping. A few of us stayed up late and talked around the campfire. From time to time one of us would add some wood to the fire so the “fire wouldn’t go out” and the camp site would remain warm, secure, and lighted. If you haven’t noticed the camp fires of the Lord’s army are suffering today. They are suffering because fires of devotion that once burned brightly have been extinguished. The passage of Scripture in Mark that we turn our attention to this morning, is not a poetic, feel-good message from Jesus. We would prefer to sit around the warm fire and hear our Savior say something like, “In my Father’s house are many mansions, I go to prepare a place for you, if it were not so, I would have told you.” (John 14:2) But here we get a graphic and unsettling picture of the consequences of putting the fire out. You mean we can put the fire out? Not totally, God’s fire will always burn, but we can heap buckets of water on the fire as it relates to our world.
I. DON’T PUT OUT THE FIRE OF CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES OUTSIDE OUR OWN TRADITION
Mark 9:38-39. The disciples see someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name and they tell him to stop, because he was not part of the disciples’ group. John is the one who tells Jesus what they did. It’s almost as if the beloved disciple expects a medal from Jesus. Didn’t he learn anything from the recent argument about who is the greatest. Instead of seeking to be a servant, the disciple put their concern for the demon remover’s authority over the people that were being helped. People were having demons removed, and the disciples halt the miracles. Jesus tells them to stop hindering the one who is casting out demons, saying, “He who is not against us is for us.”
This nameless miracle worker reminds us of Jesus himself and the problem he encountered from the religious leaders when he cast out demons. In Mark 3:23, Jesus responded by saying, “How can Satan drive out Satan?” It’s pretty persuasive. Jesus notes that the man who uses his name to remove demons will not soon be able to speak evil of Jesus.
This passage has tremendous parallels to our time. How much fighting is there going on between different Christian organizations. There are actually some pretty big movements that feel that their group is the only one’s going to heaven. We’ve all heard the joke about getting to heaven and over in the corner is a group sitting by themselves. We come to find out that that particular group thinks they are the only one in heaven, so they refuse to acknowledge anyone else.
Such won’t be the case in heaven. I wouldn’t be a Nazarene, if there wasn’t an inclusive part of our teaching that gives credence to the believe that we are only one group of the universal Christian church which is made up of the entire body of Christ. That’s one reason why I went to Asbury Theological Seminary instead of Nazarene Theological Seminary. But I’ve go to confess to you we in The Church of the Nazarene have sinned in excluding people. We don’t come out and say others aren’t going to heaven, but in our small denominational family network there is sometimes apparent a “good old boy” feeling of superiority. In my own life recently I caught myself saying this. Carolyn Wilson shared with me about a minister in a charismatic church who might be able to provide a special service to us, and the first thing I thought of was, “but we have different traditions.” I feel the need to be repentant for my judgment of other denominations in the past. We need to build unity in the body of Christ. Think of all the ways we are blessed by the work of other churches in our community.
Who watches TV 65, Pine Bluff’s Christian Television Station? That’s the ministry of Immanuel Baptist Church.
Who has been to the “Book of Life”, where our own Michelle Harrison accepted the Lord at? That’s the ministry of the First Assembly of God.
The list could go on and on, if we thought about the role of the body of Christ in our city of 60,000 people. This message, is exactly why I have tried to be supportive of the interdenominational Jay Strack Crusade at the Convention Center Oct. 12-16. I’d like us to send a few volunteers, and I’ve made the decision to cancel our evening services that coincide with the crusade services, so some of us can attend a be a part.
Carmine DeSena in The Air Down Here (Chronicle Books, 1995, p. 7) states, “There’s a lesson my grandmother use to recite: ‘The world is like a hand and all the people its fingers. If you hate and destroy one group of people, you lose a finger, and the grasp of the world is less.’” How much of our grip do we need to lose before we are all crippled?
We have to stop putting out the fire of different groups that are serving God, either by criticism or indifference. We should be supportive and try and be a part of what God is doing to accomplish his greater (non-denominational) purposes. This does not mean we compromise integrity. We can have unity without ignoring the truth of the Bible. We might note that no where in Scripture does it say that the man who cast out demons was a practicing homosexual. If he was, the central issue would not be for him to stop ministering, it would be for him to repent of the SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY.
II. DON’T PUT OUT THE FIRE OF THE LITTLE ONES
Then we find that we should not put out the fire of the “little ones”. Mark 9:42 gives a stern judgment upon those who do. Death by drowning was the severest of punishments for the Jews who would have read Mark’s Gospel. There would not and could not be a proper burial and that was very significant to their culture.
How do we cause one of these little ones” who believe in Jesus to sin? It’s our example. 1. When we do not pray for a decision, we teach the little ones, that God doesn’t answer prayer anymore. Ill. A child asked is father. “Dad, is God dead?” “Why of course not. Why would you ask such a question, my child,?” said the father. The child responded, “Because you don’t talk to him like you use to.”
2. When we don’t read God’s Word and treasure it, we teach the little ones, that His word is no longer relevant. When a generation of adult leaders decided to take God out of the public schools in the early 1960’s, they started the cycle of leading the little ones to sin.
3. When we don’t tell others about Jesus’ love, we teach the little ones that witnessing is out of date.
4. When we sin ourselves in any area and don’t repent, we teach the “little ones” that God’s standards are “optional.” This is not pleasant. We’d prefer to be like Charles Barkley and say, “I’m no role model!” But we are.
Jim Wallis writes in The Call to Conversion (HarperCollins, 1992, p. 108) his testimony: "When I was a university student, I was unsuccessfully evangelized by almost every Christian group on campus. My basic response to their preaching was, “How can I believe when I look at the way the church lives?” They answered, “Don’t look at the church, look at Jesus.” I now believe that statement is one of the saddest in the history of the church. ...People should be able to look at the way we live and begin to understand what the gospel is about. Our lives must tell them who Jesus is and what he cares about."
Let’s not put the fire out of the little ones.
III. DON’T PUT OUT OUR OWN FIRE
Lastly, we are told not to put out our own fire. Mark 9:50 says, “Have salt in yourselves.” How do we keep salt in ourselves. It’s really very basic. We must seek the Lord wholeheartedly and let our relationship with him permeate everything in our life. That’s what Jesus means by the three exaggeration statements he makes in verses 43-47-- cut of your hand, cut off your foot, take out one of your eyes. It’s better for us to literally be without part of our body and have a fire in our spirit than to have all of our body and be dead in our spirit.
I remember a saint of my home church named Alice. When I was growing up she reminded me from time to time, “Alan, don’t ever let the fire in you die out.” As I look at my life of 28 years that advice is still the most important thing. There have been times when the fire has died (more than I care to admit), but I’ve always been able to find the Holy Spirit’s spark to forgive me and set the fire going.
Closing Song: A Charge to Keep I Have.
“Do not quench the Spirit’s Fire” 1 Thessalonians 5:19
