Summary: Our God is a consuming fire.

A Consuming Fire

(Heb.12:29)

I have always been intrigued by that concluding verse in Hebrews 12:29:

…for our God is a consuming fire

What does that mean? God is a consuming fire.

Most of us are familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities whose people lived such sinful lives that an angel was sent to warn Lot to get out of the city with his family before it was destroyed. Verse 24 of Gen.19:

Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and He overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.

No doubt the writer of Hebrews was aware of that story when he wrote:

“our God is a consuming fire”.

Again many of us are familiar with the story of the prophet Elijah and his contest with the 800 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. It seems that the people of Israel could not decide which God to follow: Jehovah Almighty, the God of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob or Baal. To settle the dispute each side was to build an altar and place a sacrifice on the altar for the god to consume. The prophets of Baal went first- dancing and praying, even cutting themselves and crying aloud all morning for their god Baal to receive the bull sacrifice, but there was no answer.

Then Elijah built his altar and placed the bull sacrifice on it and just for good measure, he dug a trench around the altar and filled it with water and saturated all the wood for the fire and the meat itself with water. Then Elijah prayed to the Lord and asked Him to receive this sacrifice so the people might see that He the Lord was the only true God. Verse 38 reads this way:

“then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood,

and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.

And the people of Israel just like Lot and his family got a first hand look at what the Hebrew writer reports: “our God is a consuming fire.”

But this explanation of God does not end in the Old Testament, most of us have been taught or heard about Hell and the fires of Hell and how in the end times hell and its inhabitants will be thrown into the lake of fire. John in the book of Revelation makes this very clear: (Rev. 20:13-15)

And the sea gave up the dead in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead in them. and all were judged by what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

I wonder if we are beginning to see at least on the surface that God is a consuming fire. That you don’t mess around and take the matter so lightly, calling God, Almighty, “your buddy”, when you begin to realize that fire, literally, and as we will see as well, figuratively does come from God and you can find yourself consumed to death. And in case you think all that I have said thus far is a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo, you have only to look at Sept 11 for a very clear and stark reminder that God is a consuming fire and as the Hebrews writer told us (Heb.13:8) He, the Lord is the same yesterday today and forever.

But there are other elements to this consuming fire as well. For example, we know the story of Moses on Mount Horeb, when he saw the burning bush and heard the call of God. The text says: (v.3:2):

“And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and Moses looked and lo the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.”

This time death and destruction is not the result of the consuming fire but insight and revelation. And the same seems to be the case with Isaiah when he had his vision in the temple after the death of King Uzziah that’s recorded in Is.6.

In his vision, Isaiah sees the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and angels appear, holiness is declared unto God, the temple shook and was filled

with smoke and Isaiah was struck down with fear and awe, and an angel took from the altar a burning coal held in tongs and touched the mouth of Isaiah saying: “…your guilt is taken away and your sin forgiven…..”

Like the fire in the bush that Moses saw this fired coal brings the revelation of God, healing, and then a call to serve. The prophet Malachi calls this element of God’s consuming fire, a refiner’s fire: (Mal.3:2)

But who can endure the day of His coming, and who can stand when he (the Lord) appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire…He will sit as a refiner and

purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold

and silver, till they present right offerings to the Lord.”

In other words the fire of God here is a source to purify and make better or holier;

like we are diamonds in the rough as the saying goes and we need to chip off or remove the dirt and grime, the rough edges, so that we may shine brilliantly as

intended. God is not just in the destruction business-- wiping out cities and

destroying evil people, there is something else to His consuming fire and that something else is the power to refine us and make us new creations in Christ Jesus our Lord. John who is so explicit in talking about God’s wrath and judgment in the book of Revelation is just as explicit in describing to us the image of the

risen Christ whose eyes were like a flame of fire (Rev.1:14) and when seeing the risen Christ, John like Moses, and Isaiah, fell to the ground overcome with fear and trembling, humbled to the point of nothingness before the Lord God, but told to rise up and to write the revelation he was given.

This element of refining and purifying, a part of the consuming fire of God is one that many of us are not so sure we want to deal with, because the transforming power of God in our lives can be quite scary and demanding, even painful - calling us to change when we don’t want to move out of the comfort zone we have made for our self or giving up the sin we continue to find temporary pleasure in. We have only to look again at Moses to see that he was not necessarily a willing candidate for divine refining and purifying- he had all kinds of

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excuses to hinder God’s work in and for him. We have only to look at our priorities as to where we spend the most time and money to realize how much we are like Moses in our resistance to God’s shaping our lives; still He

remains whether we like it or not a consuming fire capable of death and destruction but wanting to refine and purify those He has called and chosen.

There is one other element I cannot fail to mention now that we have come this far and that is the reward, the blessing when you and I are willing to respond obediently to the REFINER’S work in and through us.

That happened of course with Moses, he finally stopped questioning and challenging God and “got with the divine program” so to speak. Moses went to Pharoah and told him to let the Israelite slaves go. And God worked in only ways that He can work and the Israelites were released. On the way out of Egypt and heading toward the promise land, this point is made in the Scriptures: (Ex.13:21)

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them(the people) along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them

light…. the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from the people.

Now our Lord, the consuming fire that He is, displays His blessing and protection over His people in the form of a cloud as a shade protecting from the burning sun and fire to light the way through the darkness of night. There is far more that could be said about this fire for the Israelites, but surely we can see with nothing else mentioned that blessing and reward has come to those who will trust and obey.

One final example of this blessing that comes through the fire of God is seen at Pentecost. The disciples were gathered in a Jerusalem home waiting for the Holy Spirit as Christ had instructed them. Hear again that Pentecost experience as it is told to us in Acts 2:

And suddenly a sound came from Heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each of the disciples. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit……

A rather unusual, even bizarre experience, as we try to picture in our mind

“tongues of fire” distributed and resting on each of the disciples. But here again like the pillar of fire that went before the Israelites, is the fire of God this time in

the form of tongues of fire- not destroying or purifying as much as being a

source of blessing and divine reward that ushers in the gift of tongues as each disciple began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

I have certainly not exhausted the meaning or explanation of the Hebrews

Writer’s words: for our God is a consuming fire, but enough has been said I hope to awaken us to the point that these are not simply symbolic nor empty words to be glossed over as we finish reading chapter 12. But rather these words

remind us anew of the awesome wrath and judgment of God as well as His earnest desire to refine us into His glorified creation that shares in His

blessing and rewards.