Our God is a consuming fire. That's what I've entitled this
message. And there is something frightening
about this verse because of the image it brings into our mind
and it should have that effect. Our God is a consuming fire. And I pray by the end of this
message we'll also find this comforting, both frightening and comforting. Our God is a consuming fire,
not our God was a consuming fire, our God is a consuming Fire. You know, that's more of a reality
than me and you sitting here. He said, I am that I am. He that cometh to God must believe
that he is, not merely that he exists, but that he is. He is exactly as he makes himself
known in this book, the Holy Scriptures. He is. God is light. In him, there's
no darkness at all. God is love. Not, here's what
love means and God fits that description. No, God is. God is holy. How do you describe
that? I don't know. The best definition
I've ever read with regard to God's holiness is he is other. Altogether other. There's none that can be compared
with him. There's none that are like Him. He is altogether other. God is good. God is good all the time. And we err when we say, well,
how could God let this happen? Or how could a good God let that
happen? God's good. all the time. And we trust his character. We
might not understand what's going on, but I don't need to. He does.
God is good all the time. God is sovereign. David said, our God is in the
heavens. He hath done, not he's doing,
he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. God is all-powerful. Is anything too hard for the
Lord? God is immutable. Malachi chapter
3 verse 6, God said, I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore,
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. You know, the reason you're not
consumed right now and the reason I'm not consumed right now, because
he changes not. God is independent. He is not
worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything. He's
utterly independent. He has no needs outside of himself. God is spirit. That's why he's
omnipresent. He can't be confined to space
or time. God is spirit. And our God is a consuming fire. Now, this is a quotation from
the Old Testament. Would you turn with me to the
book of Deuteronomy chapter four? It's found twice in the book
of Deuteronomy. Verse 23. Take heed unto yourselves, lest
ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He made
with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of anything
which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee. For the Lord thy God is
a consuming fire. Even a jealous God, His name
is jealous and He's a consuming fire toward any false concept
of Him. Anything you say, well, this
is like God. This is like anything that is not the God of the Bible,
God hates. God is who He is. He is a consuming
fire. Look in Deuteronomy chapter nine, verse three. Understand this therefore, understand
therefore this day that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over
before thee as a consuming fire. He shall destroy them, and as
he shall bring them down before thy face, so shalt thou drive
them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said unto thee. Now he is a consuming fire. Speak not thou in thy heart after
the Lord thy God has sent cast them out from before thee saying,
for my righteousness, the Lord has brought me in to possess
this land. No, that's not the reason, but
for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord does drive them out.
from before thee, not for thy righteousness or for thy uprightness
of thine heart does thou go to possess their land, but for the
wickedness of these nations. The Lord thy God doth drive them
out from before thee, that he may perform the word which the
Lord swear unto our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." God
is a consuming fire. He's going to consume your enemies.
He's going to consume your sins. Are your sins your greatest enemies?
Mine are. And he promises he's going to
consume them. Now back to Hebrews chapter 12.
Let's back up a little bit and see why he made this statement. Our God is a consuming fire. Verse 26, whose voice then shook
the earth, but now he is promising yet once more, I shake not the
earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifies
the removing of those things that are shaken as a things which
are made. But those things which cannot
be shaken may remain. What can be shaken? everything you see, everything you touch, everything
that is made. Paul said the things which are
seen are temporal, temporary. They will not last but the things
which are not seen are eternal and that's all that's going to
remain. We considered that last week with a Songwriter said,
life is short, will soon be past, only what's done for Christ shall
last. No, only what Christ has done shall last. All things that are made are
movable and immutable. Only that which is eternal cannot
be moved." Now listen to me, God's salvation, I love this.
God's salvation is an eternal salvation. The whole Bible is
interpreted through this one verse. Christ is called the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. The entire Bible is
seen through that one verse. There you see God's purpose.
There you see God's aim. There you see God's agenda. The
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. That's an eternal
salvation. The Lamb, my hope of Christ dying
for me. The Lamb slain, having been slain
from the foundation of the world before time began, before there
was ever a sinner, there was the Savior. Now I can rest in
that because there's nothing I can do to mess it up. It's
already been accomplished in eternity. The Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. Listen to this. Hebrews chapter
4 verse 3 says, all the works, all the works, all the works
of salvation were finished from the foundation of the world. 2nd Timothy 1.9, He saved us and He called us. I love saying
this, the saving came before the calling. He saved us and
He called us with a holy calling not according to our works but
according to His own purpose and grace, which were given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. Now look what he says
in verse 28. Wherefore, in light of these
things that cannot be shaken, wherefore we receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved. We receive this. And you know why we receive it?
God gave it to us. He didn't offer it. He didn't
make it available. We receive this kingdom for this
one singular reason. He gave it to us. And if you didn't receive it
or if you don't receive it, He never gave it. He never offers
anything. He gives. And that is why we
receive, I love the scripture, as many as received him. To them
gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them which
believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, not of the
will of man, not of the will of the flesh, but of God. Now, anyone who has received
this kingdom, this eternal kingdom, this glorious kingdom and the
king of this kingdom, anyone who has received this kingdom
has some understanding of this next phrase. Verse 28, wherefore
we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved. What? Let us have grace. We need grace. Let us have grace. What is grace? Grace is what God does. Works are what you do. Grace
is what God does. Do you believe any aspect of
your salvation is God responding to something you did? That's
called works. That's all it is. God's grace
is what God does. Salvation by works leaves salvation
in some measure, to some degree, dependent upon what I do. I see
no safety in that. Do you? Any kind of grace that is dependent
on me to do anything is not the grace of God. You can call it
grace if you want, but you can call it peanut butter too. It's
not the grace of God. God's grace is saving grace. And any kind of grace that does
not save is not God's grace. God's grace is electing grace. Election, God's choice of you. It wasn't him responding to something
about you. He did it as an act of his free and sovereign will,
not because of you, but because this is who he is. He delights
in grace. God's grace is redeeming grace. He paid for your sins. Not because
you did anything to merit it. Simply because He delights in
mercy. That's who He is. God's grace
is justifying grace. God's grace makes the object
of His grace to be in a state of having never sinned. That's what justification is.
It's not merely forgiven. If I'm justified, that means
I have nothing to be guilty of. I'm justified before God. That's
God's work. God's grace is life giving grace. He doesn't offer a dead sinner
grace. He gives that dead sinner life.
It's life giving grace. It's preserving grace. The reason
I persevere is because I'm kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation. It's his work from the beginning
to the end. Grace. glorifying grace that
makes me in heaven right now and the person of my redeemer.
Now that's grace. And that's only what he does. He did it all. Now, if you, if your grace is
not like that grace, if it's not saving grace, it's not God's
grace. Turn with me for a moment to Ephesians chapter two. Verse one, and you have he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world. according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath." That's
a very important word, by nature. I was born into this world with
an evil nature, a child of wrath, a wrathful child who had no love
for God, no love for his way of saving, a child of wrath. That didn't just talk about being
angry. It was talking about being angry with God, not loving God
as he is. Wrathful children by nature. I inherited Adam's sinful nature. And I'm born into this world
with an evil nature. And I'm evil by choice. That's the reason I'm evil. I
choose to be evil. It's not like I'm unable to do
it. I do what I want to do. That's
why it's so bad. And I'm a child of wrath by practice. Now, grace can't be understood
apart from sin. Grace is a meaningless concept
apart from what I just read, that we are by nature children
of wrath, even as others. But God, verse four, who is rich
in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved. That's what this means. By grace
ye are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now listen to the
language of this. When Christ was raised, I was
raised together with Him. As he's seated in the heavens,
I'm sitting there with him, together with him. You know, this is what
the Lord meant when he said, I am the resurrection. The resurrection
is not an event. When he was raised from the dead,
I was raised from the dead. I am the resurrection and the
life. And let's go on reading verse
seven. that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches
of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus,
for by grace are you saved. Don't you say amen to that? From
the very depths of your heart. That's the way I was saved. There
isn't going to be anybody in heaven that's more of an example
of what free grace is than me. And that's the way every believer
feels. By grace are you saved, through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus and two good works, which God had before ordained
that we should walk in them. Let us have grace. Let us have
grace. Seeing we've received this kingdom,
Cannot be moved, let us have grace. Hold the grace. Be strong in the grace that's
in Christ Jesus. Now look what he says next. Back
to our text in Hebrews chapter 12. Verse 28, wherefore we receiving
a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we
may serve God acceptably. Now the only acceptable service
is that service which is by grace. Let us have grace whereby we
may serve God acceptably. And he gives two words that demonstrate
to us what it means to serve God acceptably by his grace reverence
and godly fear. Now, where we have grace, where
we have the grace of God, this always appears reverence and
godly fear. Now, this word reverence is only
used one other time in the New Testament, and it's translated
shame-facedness. Shamefacedness. The publican would not so much
as lift up his eyes to heaven. Shamefacedness. It carries with it the idea of
downcast eyes. And I believe the seraphims teach
us more about what this means than I think anything else in
the Bible. Those magnificent creatures that are the highest
of the order of angels, those creatures that are of greater
power and might than we are. When Isaiah describes these creatures,
God's creatures, these mighty angels, they fly around the throne
of God crying, holy, holy, Holy. Holy is the Father. Holy is the
Son. Holy is the Spirit. They have
six wings. With two wings, what do they
do? Cover their faces. They can't look on God. With
two, they cover their feet. They're ashamed of their walk.
Now somebody says, how could a seraphim be ashamed of his
walk? He's never sinned. He could sin,
though. And he knows that. He knows that
if without God keeping him, like he did the other elect angels,
that he would fall just like Satan would. They all know that
would happen apart from the grace of God and the restraints of
God. And with the other two, they
fly to carry out his command. Reverence, shamefacedness. And the next word he uses, I
love this. This is acceptable service by
the grace of God. Godly fear. The fear of God that's the beginning
of wisdom. The fear of God that makes us
afraid of sin because sin's against him. That's why there's no such
thing as a little sin. That's why there's no such thing
as an inconsequential sin. Sin is against God. You're afraid
to look at Him. Now, this fear of God, this godly
fear, here is the dead giveaway of godly fear. You're afraid
to look anywhere but Christ alone for all your acceptance before
God. If you don't look to Christ only
right now, it's because you're irreverent and you have no fear
of God. Anyone who fears God, they look
to Christ only in their acceptance before God, they're afraid to
look anywhere else because they fear God, because they see something
of his character, and that makes them know that the only ground
of acceptance is Jesus Christ. Now that's reverence, shame-facedness. I love that. No man can look
upon God and godly fear. Let us have grace whereby we
may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for
our God is a consuming fire. Now, the first thing that I find
comfort in is he says, our God, our God. I will be to them a
God and they shall be to me a people." Our God, the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of glory. The covenant-making, the covenant-keeping
God is a consuming fire. Now that word means an utterly
consuming fire. Sodom and Gomorrah found that
out. There were no survivors. God was merciful to Lot. The
angels took him by the hand, brought him out and his daughters. Nobody survived. God is a consuming
fire. The sons of Gorah found that
out when they said, Moses has taken too much on himself. We're
as holy as he is. Aaron's taken too much on himself. We can offer incense just like
him. God opened up the ground and
sent him to hell with the shoes on. And they found out that God
is a consuming fire. And what about Nadab and Abihu?
All they do, They're the sons of Aaron, his priests. And all
they do is light some incense with some fire that didn't come
from the altar. And most of the scriptures say, I'm talking about
the altar where the sacrifice was. They were somehow lighting
up this incense separate from the sacrifice. They thought,
well, we don't need to have that kind of fire. I mean, as long
as we're sincere, as long as our hearts are right, it's okay. We'll just use this fire instead
of that fire. And fire came down from heaven
and consumed them both. And Moses said to Aaron, don't
you cry, don't you tear up your garments. They had this coming. God said, I'll be sanctified
by them that draw nigh unto me. And they failed to do that. They
bypassed the sacrifice. What about the fire that came
down? from heaven and consumed Elijah's
sacrifice. You remember the story? Elijah
said that God that answered by fire, let him be God. So the priests of Baal got around
their sacrifice, danced, cut themselves, crying, asking, Baal,
hear us, and nothing happened. Elijah takes the sacrifice, puts
it on the altar, douses it down with water three times to make
sure that everybody sees this hidden trickery and he prays
and the fire of God comes down from heaven and Consumes the
sacrifice the altar the stones the dust licked up the water
They said The Lord he is God the God that answered by fire
it was a consuming and Turn with me for a moment to
Luke chapter 12, verse 49. Luke chapter 12, verse 49. I am come, these are the words
of the Lord, I am come to send fire on the earth. That's why I've come. And he's
talking about the fire of God's wrath that's going to come down
upon him. From the time he had consciousness,
he knew this was going to take place. When he was 12 years old,
he knew this was going to take place when he said, I must be
about my father's business. That's why he's called a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He knew the fire was already
kindled. He says in verse 50, he says,
and what will I, if it be already kindled, but I have a baptism
to be baptized with. He'd already gone through water
baptism. This is talking about him being
completely immersed under the wrath of God. I have a baptism
to be baptized with, and how is my soul straightened until
it be accomplished? Turn with me to the book of Lamentation, right after Jeremiah. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations. Verse 11. All her people sigh,
they seek bread. They've given their pleasant
things for me to relieve their soul. Now look at these words. See, O Lord, and consider. For I am become vile. Who's the only one who ever became
vile? Men, you were born vile. This
is talking about when he took the sins of his people on himself,
when he drank the dregs of that cup the father gave him. And he owned those sins as his
own, even though he never committed sin in his person. Yet he drank
that cup, and he bore our sins in his own body on the tree."
Now, let's go on reading. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Behold and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. From
above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against
them. He hath spread a net from my
feet, he hath turned me back. He hath made me desolate and
faint all the day, the yoke of my transgressions." That's what
he calls the sins of the people that he's bearing. He says, the
yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand. You see, he
became guilty of those transgressions. The justice of God, the fire
of God's wrath came down upon him. They are wreathed and come
upon my neck. He hath made my strength to fall.
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands from whom I am not
able to rise up. The Lord hath trodden underfoot
my mighty men in the midst of me. That's all of his people
being punished in him. He hath called an assembly against
me to crush my young men. The Lord hath trodden down the
virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. Now this is
the Lord speaking from the cross. When he says, behold, is there
any sorrow? like my sorrow. Now, do you remember how I said
at the beginning of this message, the believer is to be comforted
by God being a consuming fire? Yes, frightened. Yes, filled
with awe, filled with reverence and godly fear with regard to
the glory of his person. But this is also to comfort the
believer. The fire burns until the fuel
it is consuming is gone. Then it stops burning. The fire of God's wrath was because
of sin. And Christ did something that
no one else could do, that me and you could never do. When
he bore that sin, he put it away and made it not to be. And there's no reason for the
fire of God's wrath anymore. Now this is to comfort me that
God's a consuming fire. He consumed the sin. You know,
when the fire of God's wrath came down upon Christ, Christ
was not consumed. The fire was consumed. The reason
Christ didn't go into a process of decay when he died is because
he made complete satisfaction for everybody he died for. And this is comforting. that consuming fire is not gonna
consume where it's already consumed the sin and there is no more
sin. Now this is a true story, so
I've read. This was back in the days where
people were taking covered wagons out west. And there was a group
in the park where there were grass and there would be fires
that would start and they would come and call it a prairie fire
and they could just come and make such progress. And these
people saw this fire way back in the background, a long way
away, but they knew they couldn't outrun it. And so you know what
they did? There was a very wise man that
set the grass on fire where they were at. And it kept spreading
and spreading and spreading and it was a great big place. And
it went out fairly quickly because it was so combustible and the
grass was gone. And so they were in this big
wide place where all the ground had already been burnt. And they
put the wagons in that place and all the people in that place.
And a boy looked up at his dad and said, dad, I'm scared. What's going to happen? That
fire's coming at us. And he said, son, the fire can't burn ground
that's already been burnt. And that is the hope of the believer. My sins have already been burnt. by what Christ did, and God's
wrath cannot touch that person that their sins were punished
in Christ. Our God is a consuming fire,
and that is our hope. The only thing that causes the
fire to continue is the fuel that causes it. And when the
sin is gone, and that's what in him, he was manifested to
take away our sins, in him is no sin. If I'm in Him, I have
no sin. Thank God, our God, our covenant
God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the absolutely
just, sovereign, holy God, our God, is a consuming fire. And that is where all of our
hope lays. Let's pray. Lord, how we thank you that you
are a consuming fire and that the fire of your justice consumed
all of our sins when Christ bore them on Calvary's tree and put
them away. And Lord, we know that there's
no consuming fire of wrath for us because of our glorious Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, how we thank you for
him and how we ask for grace to follow him, how we ask for
grace to serve you acceptably. with reverence and godly fear,
rejoicing that you are a consuming fire.