Address—D. Rule
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We'll begin our time together this afternoon with our God.
By singing together #111.
By thee, O God, invited we look unto the sun. We're 111.
I feel God.
Right.
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Our God, we're here this afternoon, together before thee.
With thy word to be opened before us.
And we do desire our God that each one of us here this afternoon would.
See glory and beauty in beholding thy Son.
And we ask our God that there would be the practical result.
In our daily lives for Thy glory.
We look to Thee to give us collective understanding and appreciation.
For what thou would have to say to us.
We seek Thy blessing, and we ask for it in the name of our.
My son, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
In my parents home.
In the living room we had a very nice fireplace.
And it was fairly often that on a Friday night.
Or a Saturday night, we would have a fire in the fireplace.
And as a boy, I found it fascinating, and I still do as an adult.
To watch a fire.
Used to lie on the living room floor with my brothers.
And we'd sometimes lie on our stomach with our faces toward the fire, propped up on our elbows with.
Our chin in our hands, and justice stare at the fire.
And from the childhood.
Having the word of God brought before me, I suppose the most common.
Common reference to fire that I knew about in the Bible was the Lake of Fire.
But Ayrton used to wonder why fire could be so destructive.
As it is, we all know about forest fires. I'm sure we've seen I on the way down here, I saw a house that had been consumed by fire.
And completely destroyed just.
Nothing left of it.
But at the same time staring into the fire at home and since.
I've often found fire comforting.
Warming.
Beneficial.
Peaceful, even.
And in the last couple of days.
I believe the Lord has brought before my soul an answer.
So that perhaps curious question of a lifetime of why can fire at times seem and be so destructive.
And at the same time or at other times, fire is so warming and comforting.
And benefit to the soul.
Going to look this afternoon.
Sometimes having a responsibility like this.
Lemoyne Smith has come up to me a couple of times that.
Saint Louis Conference and, and he said what should we call it so we could have something to put down on the tapes?
And I guess this afternoon I'd like to think of it as the words that Abraham said to his son be behold the fire.
And the wood. Let's turn 1St to get a sense of what Scripture speaks of when it brings fire before us.
In Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews chapter 12 I'd like to read begin with two verses.
Because I believe these two verses really give us the major thoughts from God as to what we can get from the word in the scriptures fire. The first one is in Hebrews chapter 12 and the last verse it says.
Our God is a consuming fire.
Our God is a consuming fire. Now turn over before we comment on it to 1St Corinthians chapter 3.
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First Corinthians, chapter 3.
And verse 13.
Every man's work.
Shall be made manifest for the day. Shall declare it, because it shall be revealed.
By fire.
And the fire shall try every man's work.
Of what sort it is.
We know our God tells us concerning Himself that He is a consuming.
Fire. And that's one of the things that the Word of God brings before us when we read about fire.
It consumes.
And it's important for us to want to know about it because God speaks of himself in that way as being a consuming fire.
But the other verse that we read is also interesting because God is telling us that fire.
Reveals.
What something is?
It tries it.
It manifests it.
It proves it.
And so we might say that.
God speaks to us a fire as that which.
Reveals, manifests, or proves something.
And if needed, consumes it.
I want to say right at the beginning.
Everything about you.
All that you are and all that you do.
In this life.
Is to be tried by fire.
Everything.
And in fact, all things in the creation that pass through this world.
Are tested.
Proved and as needs be.
Consumed.
By fire.
Turn with me now to.
Genesis.
Chapter 22.
We'll read a little bit of the story of Abraham and Isaac because.
As you at this point expect.
It's going to bring fire before us.
And so in Genesis chapter 22 and verse.
Two, it says, And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah.
And offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.
And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his *** and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son.
And clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up.
And went unto the place of which God had told him.
And on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place.
Afar off.
And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the *** while I and the lad will go Yonder and worship, and come again to you.
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son.
And he took the fire in his hand and the knife, and they went, both of them.
Together.
I believe it's very instructive here.
To see what the father has in his hand.
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And what the sun carries.
The Father has, as they go up that mountain, Moriah.
He has a knife in one hand and he has fire in the other.
This chapter is a picture.
Of particularly God's side, the Father's side.
Of the sacrifice of his son at Calvary.
And they're on their way, the father and the son to Calvary.
And the father carries the knife.
That is going to be used to slay the sacrifice.
The father carries the fire.
That is going to.
On which the sacrifice is to be burnt.
We can read words like this and I hope in our hearts we think about it a little bit.
We'll think about it, perhaps, and gather more into it for eternity.
But it's about what God felt.
As he went with his son together to that cross.
Where the knife was to be used to slay.
The sacrifice.
And where the consuming fire?
Of God's judgment.
Was to be applied to the sacrifice.
Will never fully comprehend or estimate in our souls.
What it meant to God the Father.
To go with his son to that place.
Having in his hands the night and the fire.
I'm going to make a couple of applications of the wood.
Thankfully enough, we don't get our doctrine from applications that we shouldn't.
Applications are illustrations of truth that we learn elsewhere.
And because of that, we can make different applications of particular illustrations in the scripture.
Perhaps they're not always the primary one.
But yet there's liberty of the Spirit of God to make use of them.
And this afternoon I would like to apply the wood.
That the Lord Jesus carried as the Son, as his humanity.
The father plaved the wood.
The Father placed the wood upon the sun.
And the son carried it.
It was a tremendous thing for the Son of God.
To receive the body prepared for him by the Father.
But he receives it, and he receives all that is associated with such.
As a son carrying it in this world in which we live.
He enters into a relationship of obedience.
And it's touched my soul and meditating on it.
This way.
You and I have at times limited capacity.
To feel what other people are going through.
If we have passed through something ourselves, we are able sometimes to express our feelings and show compassion to another who is passing through a similar circumstance of life.
Just mentioning before lunch to somebody that.
We're not another brother. We're not very suited to properly express to a sister what it's like to go through childbirth.
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You've never been there.
But one sister can express it to another that's been through it with feeling and understanding.
But it was a tremendous thing.
For a holy person, the Lord Jesus Christ in humanity.
To pass through a world spoiled by sin.
Because the Lord Jesus, as he lived here as a man.
Felt.
As none other could feel.
With no diminishing of it, with no selfishness in it.
When he saw a blind man.
When he saw a leper.
His heart.
Went out. His compassions went out.
We can see people like that and if we knew them, we feel it, but we pass them over and over again on the street or in circumstances of life and we feel for it a little bit, but it's easy to pass on and enjoy our own meal and so on.
But the one who bore the wood?
As a son in this world.
Surely if born our sorrows.
And carried our griefs.
He entered into the sorrows and the griefs.
Of others in a way that cannot be measured.
In the intensity of the feeling in his own soul.
I just want to say touches my heart and I believe makes a worship for free eternity.
He bears the wood forever.
He bears wood forever.
He shall forever.
Be close to us.
In his humanity.
Entering in fully with us into the circumstances that we are in forever.
He who could go out free, who could put aside.
That body.
But no, he won't.
I'll go with you.
And it's the father.
That lays it upon the Son.
When we.
Go over the Son makes the question in verse 7.
He says, Abraham spake unto Abraham, Isaac spake unto Abraham his father. And he said, My father. And he said, Here am I my son. And he said, Behold the fire in the wood, But where's the lamb or burnt offering? Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb or burnt offering. So they went, both of them together, and they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there, and.
Abraham laid the wood.
In order.
And bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on the wood.
The wood and the sacrifices that we'll look at in Leviticus.
For that which consumed.
The offering.
And the Lord Jesus.
Had to.
Stand before God if He was to be our sacrifice as man.
He had to bear it as a man.
And on the other side of it, it's what we were.
That was such an awful thing that the Fire had to consume it.
And we see in the sin offering it ends up as ashes, and they're carried out.
Good for nothing anymore.
But the fire tried it. The fire revealed what it was.
And the fire consumed it.
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But the Lord Jesus.
Two things that seem to me in my own soul to be the fuel.
Of the fire punish the wood.
And the others? The fats, which we'll notice a little later.
Now let's turn over to Leviticus chapter one.
Leviticus, chapter one.
Verse 2.
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the cattle.
Even of the herd and of the flock, if his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish.
He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him, and he shall kill the Bullock before the Lord. And the priest, Aaron's son shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the Tabernacle.
Of the congregation, and he shall slay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces.
And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire.
Upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire. And the priest, Aaron's son, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat in order upon the wood, that is on the fire, which is upon the altar.
But his inwards and his legs shall be washed with water, and the priest shall burn all.
On the altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire.
Of a sweet savor unto the Lord.
That's where I find the comfort of watching a fire.
When God's Son.
Voluntarily presents himself as an offering to God.
And the fire is applied to it.
It reveals what the sacrifice is.
It proves.
To the heart of God, by the fire that he is what the sacrifice is.
And as that fire is applied to that sacrifice.
For God there is a Savior, a sweet smell.
It is pleasant.
Is refreshing.
Satisfying to his own heart.
A sweet savor.
Unto the Lord, But it's the application of the fire that brings it out.
And it's the heart of God that receives the results back to his own soul of the fire that he puts.
To the sacrifice.
We'll save in this chapter.
By the way, if you will, there's three different examples of this sacrifice that are offered to God, and there's the Bullock, and then there's the sheep and.
There's the turtle dove or young pigeons, and each one of them represents a little different.
Can I say appreciation?
Of what that sacrifice is to God.
The least amount of understanding is expressed in the young pigeons, and with the case of the Bullock everything was offered up. In the case of the pigeons there were some things, the crop and the feathers, that had to be put to the side and carried out where the ashes were. They couldn't be used as part of the offering. And everybody in this room has a little different measure of appreciation.
Or what the work of Christ is to God, and even in our expressions of it, in worship and praise to God, we vary in our capacities.
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And in our growth in how we can express ourselves. But whether you're a pigeon offer.
Or a Bullock offer.
God's remark about them all is they are a burnt offering.
And they are a sweet saver unto God.
So let us all.
Offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. Lord, say morning. Yes, but continually.
Giving thanks unto his name, recognizing that the.
Very expressions that we have concerning his son and his work. No lumps in it, no imperfections in it.
The oil is a figure of the Spirit of God, commingled with it in perfection before God. And so we in the Word of God trace the life of our Lord Jesus through this world and.
It's a beautiful thing to our souls.
But it also the memorial of it is burnt.
Upon the fire, and ascends as a sweet savor unto the Lord. It's one of what the scripture calls the burnt sacrifices.
One of the sacrifices that are put to the test of fire to reveal them, and by revealing them, to bring pleasure.
A sweet, a perfume to the heart of God.
It's said, and quite rightly, that.
The Lord Jesus didn't need the temptations in the wilderness.
Because he was holy and perfect, but by those temptations it was a demonstration to us.
Of who he is, and of his worthiness to be the sacrifice on the cross.
In my own heart, though, it goes beyond that.
Because.
God took pleasure.
In the display of what his son is.
And so even in temptation as well as in the expressions of goodness.
And care in his life God looks upon that that can I say testing by fire.
And trying by fire.
And it's, it's a perfume to his heart. It's for him. Turn over to Chapter 3.
And if his oblation be a sacrifice of the peace offering, he shall offer it of the herd, whether it be a male.
For a female.
He shall offer it without blemish before the Lord, and he shall lay his hand upon the head of the offering, and kill it at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation and Aaron's son's. The priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about, and he shall offer the sacrifice of the peace offering, an offering made by fire unto the Lord. The fact that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys and the fat.
That is on them, which is by the flanks and the call above the liver with the kidneys it shall he take away, and Aaron's son shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice which is upon the wood that is on the fire.
It is an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. This was an offering that was for God and man both. It was a peace offering. It was a fellowship offering, and there was part of the offering which was for God, and part of the offering which man could partake of in fellowship with his God, and yet it was a burnt offering.
It was that which?
Brings to God's heart and to God's thoughts His Son, bringing man into fellowship with himself. God takes great satisfaction in that He sent His Son into this world not only to save.
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But to bring to himself children.
To have a family for himself.
And with that family, he may have fellowship and his own enjoyment.
Of his son. But in this offering it was a burnt sacrifice. But there was.
The fat Deacon.
In one place it calls it the food of the offering or the fuel for the offering. We know what in a natural way that.
Sometimes I know how much fat there is when my lunch is warmed up in a microwave by how hot it gets.
And it provides energy and heat and.
It others have commented that it was the inner energy of the sun in his devotion and offering him himself to God. And that's for God.
God measures and God appreciates the energy of His own Son that was expressed in His life and was expressed when He went to the cross for you and for God, and offers Himself and endures all that is necessary for your and my acceptance with God in chapter 4.
Just read there a little bit.
Verse Four. And he shall bring the Bullock unto the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, and lay his hand upon the bullock's head.
And kill the Bullock before the Lord.
And.
Verse seven. And the priest shall take put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the Tabernacle of congregation, and shall pour all the blood of the Bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation. He shall take off from it all the fat of the Bullock for the sin offering, the fat that covers the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the N words, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them.
Which is by the flanks, and the call above the liver with the kidneys it he shall take away. And it was taken from off the Bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offerings. And the skin of the Bullock, and all his flesh with his head, and with his legs and his inwards, and his dung, even the whole Bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place.
Where the ashes are poured out and burned him on the wood with fire.
Where the ashes are poured out, shall he be burnt?
When the Lord Jesus was on the cross.
There was a work to be done there.
And in his own person, he does it.
As the fire of God's judgment comes down. But there's an interesting thing.
I don't know any Hebrew at all, but just by what others have remarked that know the language.
Actually, there's two different words for burn that are used.
And one of them is when it says the fire concerning the burnt offering. It's one kind of word.
But the fire that is referred to and expressed here.
That consumes to ashes is a different word.
There is the fire that displays the gold that was our Lord Jesus Christ and is our Lord Jesus Christ. There is the fire that consumes all that is inconsistent with the nature of God.
And it's taken outside. It's removed from God's presence.
And there it remains.
Everybody in this room is going to be and is being tried by fire.
For those of us who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. If I could put it this way, the trial by fire as to our souls.
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Took place.
By our substitute.
We stood before God in Christ.
And he takes our place there, and the fire comes down.
And all that he was made sin for us. That's what we are.
He bore our sins. That's what we've done.
That.
Comes under the fire of God's judgment, and it consumes it.
And removes it from God's sight.
And everyone of us that belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ have been tried by fire, as it were, and in him we passed through it.
And it will never touch us.
Your life.
You're acting in life, I'm acting in life. You're living it day by day.
And your whole life.
Is going to be tried by fire.
Everything you've done, everything you've said.
In this life is going to have the fire triumph.
Everything that is of God in your life will remain for eternity.
And everything that was not of God.
Will be burned, consumed to ashes, removed from God's sight forever.
And we wish it so.
If you stop to think about it, you're thankful for it.
Because.
After the fire has taken its last step, if you will, and destroyed this present heavens and present earth, even this creation will be tried by fire. And after it's exhausted, it consumed it because it's spoiled by sin, everything that remains will be consistent with God.
And there's a consuming fire. There will be nothing more. Can I say even then to consume?
And so God is going to try every sort of life.
And every sort of work, but I say to you this afternoon if you.
Have not been exposed to the fire and the person of the Lord Jesus at the cross. Or in other words, if you're not saved, if you have not accepted the Lord Jesus as your substitute.
As the one who at the cross bore the fire of God's judgment.
Then you must.
Suffer it yourself.
And that's why it calls it the Lake of Fire.
Elsewhere calls it a furnace of fire.
Because.
Lake is confinement, Furnace is confinement, And when you enter into the furnace of fire, of God's wrath, or the lake of God's wrath, you'll never escape it.
It'll be an eternal burning for you.
What an awful thing.
What an awful thing. And yet.
What an awful thing it would be if the Lord chooses to come this afternoon, if God sends Him to take us.
Sheltered by his precious blood, and passed through the fire of God's judgment in him.
Are taken home.
Pure as gold in the sight of God, and you remain.
For certain eternal burning.
Terrible turn with me to chapter 6.
Verse 9.
Leviticus 69 command Aaron and his son saying this is the law of the burnt offering.
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It is the burnt offering, because the burning upon the altar all night until the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning on it in it. And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches. He shall put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar. And he shall put them beside the altar. And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place.
And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it.
It shall not or never be put out, and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it, and he shall burn there on the fat of the peace offerings. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar. It shall never go out.
I think this is God's plan for eternity.
Concerning his son.
That which was necessary to consume.
That which didn't stand, if you will, the test of fire, was burned.
And removed from the sight of God, and remains that way forever.
But the altar of the burnt offering.
On which the fire was placed.
Never goes out.
And God will have an eternal satisfaction, an eternal sweet savor for his nostrils.
From.
His son.
And all that He is, and all that he is, in his humanity as well as in his deity, all that he is as man, as well as what he is as God.
Man so dishonored God by sinning Adam and Eve, our forefathers. It was a terrible disgrace to God that he could provide for his creature everything for his joy and satisfaction and then have him say, I'll listen to Satan.
I'll go my own way.
And yet God says I'm going to have eternal satisfaction in a man.
And all that are his.
And as it were, the fire that reveals what it is will never go out.
It will display it, reveal it, never consume it.
Because it says that we're the gold.
But it will remain before the eye and heart of God, and you and I will, without the distractions of this life and so on, we will enter into it more fully and completely forever.
I would like to look at a couple of scriptures or refer to them at least. Man has fires too.
Not only does God have fire, but man makes fire.
In the Old Testament, sometimes it says God just came right down and produced the fire that burned up the sacrifice. I think in Elijah when there were the false prophets with Elijah. There's a case here in Leviticus where it wasn't that man struck a match and started the fire, but God himself is what he is. He just came down and he ignited the sacrifice by the fire. But man has a tendency to imitate whatever God does. Man tries to imitate it and it's a bad thing to do. And in fact it God has his judgment upon it. And one instance of it here is in.
Leviticus, chapters 9 and 10.
Verse Leviticus Chapter 9 and verse 23.
We'll read a few verses here.
Then Moses and Aaron went into the Tabernacle of the congregation, and came out and blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people.
And there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat.
Which when all the people saw, they shouted and fell on their knees. As God causes that eternal burning of the fire on the altar, we are going to see it in our souls and it's going to produce the same response one of when the people saw, they shouted and fell on their knees. We're going to shout a song of redemption and praise and fall on our knees and worship even though.
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It may be very dim this afternoon in our souls.
Verse 10, Chapter 10 And Nadab and a by Hue, the sons of Aaron took either of them his censor, and put fire therein, and put incense there on, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not, and there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. May the Lord help us, that none of us.
Offer a strange fire even to God.
Made a Bayou. Put aside what God had instructed.
There was an incense that was to be formed exactly according to God's direction, because it spoke of His Son.
And all that he is to God.
And that incense was placed upon the fire and rose up as a savior to God.
But Nate Adam to buy, who had their own ideas about concocting an incense, I think.
And they also had their own way of where they were going to get their fire to present their offering to God.
We must seek God's help and mercy and preserving that we ever and only.
Present to God his Son, not a son of our own making.
Not a Christ of our own imagination. Not a work for God.
That we dream up.
But only that which God has planned and done in His Son. May the Lord help us.
Preserve us from the sin of Nadab and the Bahu in forming their own as that we're offering to God that spoke of his Son.
Let's turn over to a fire of man.
Comforting one to us in Daniel.
Where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are placed in the fire.
This is a fire of man.
God uses fire, He is fire consuming fire, and he consumes things.
And sometimes man creates a fire to consume you.
If you belong to the Lord Jesus and all the time is producing fire of his own making in order to destroy things.
And here is a man that has his own fire to destroy those who do not bow down before him.
And so.
Umm Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego here in chapter 6.
Sorry, it's not Daniel Six. What is it?
Thank you Chapter 3.
Chapter 3 and.
He says to them in verse 15 Now if you be ready, at which time you hear the sound of the coronet, the flute, the harp, the sackbut, and so on, he says, Ye shall worship.
But if not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. And who is that? God shall deliver you out of my hands.
And so they give answer to the king, and he gets mad. He.
Said well, God is able to deliver us, but if not, we're not going to bow.
And so he's full of fury in verse 19, and he puts them into the fire. He commands in verse 19 that the.
Should heat this furnace seven times more than it should be heated.
He takes His most mighty man in verse 20 and uses them to cast the men into the furnace.
And verse 21 These men are bound in their coats and so on. They're cast in.
Verse 22 Because the commandment was so urgent of the king, and he was so.
Mad that he and the fire that he had created was so exceeding hot that the flame slew the very soldiers that had placed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in it. And verse 23 they fall down, bound into the midst of the furnace.
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And then Nebuchadnezzar is sitting there, I guess watching it happen, and he looks in and he says, well we put three men in and now there appear to be 4 there.
Verse 25 I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt.
And the 4th is of the.
Like the Son of God.
And Shadrach himself comes near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and to them tells them to come forth. They do in verse 27. And it says the Princess and governors and captains.
Of the King's counselors being gathered together, saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coach changed, or the smell of fire had passed over them.
And verse.
28 says.
They have yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any God except the true God.
Let's take comfort in that. No fire of man.
Can in any way touch?
The soul, and if God chooses, the body even of one of his own.
Man may create his fire to consume.
But God is the one who is able to preserve, no matter if it's heated 7 times, no matter if the very fire that man prepares consumes himself in the process.
God is with His own in every fire through which they may pass to preserve, to go through it with them, so that in the end result.
There's not even the smell of it.
That can touch those who were sown. And so it shall be with anyone in this room that passes through the fire of tribulation or the fire of God's hand through man's opposition to himself.
Eternity will reveal.
That it could not consume.
I'd like to warn you about another fire, Peter, unfortunately.
When he was following the Lord Jesus and I admire Peter.
Even in this part of his life. But when Peter went into the courtyard of the high priest's house when the Lord Jesus had been taken there on the night before his crucifixion, it was a cold night.
And Peter felt the cold of the night, and while he was seeking to be with or near the Lord Jesus.
It says he warmed himself by the fire, the fire that the soldiers and others in the house had kindled to keep warm on that cold night.
Brethren, may the Lord help us. Sometimes the night is cold.
But let's not seek out.
The warmth of the world's fires.
It's harmful to the soul and it robs the believer of his courage.
To speak and live for the Lord Jesus.
Well, I'd just like to again say in closing.
Behold the fire and the wood.
May the Lord give us to see, as it were, the fire applied to our Lord Jesus Christ as man and his life and his death.
And to rejoice in it.
And to be thankful.
As we are soon to be with Him and enjoy it perfectly and forever, let's just pray.
Our God and Father, we.
Are thankful that Thou was willing to carry the knife.
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And the fire.
We thank you, Lord Jesus, for carrying the wood.
Right to.
The top of the mountain.
And being the lamb of God's providing.
Oh Lord Jesus, we just desire to have it more, have a central point place in our hearts and our lives.
That our daily life might reflect.
The warmth of that fire.
And to live to Lord Jesus with the realization.
But everything that doesn't pass the test of God's trying fire.
Will have to be removed forever.
That we won't have to be always like Job had to be, and yet help us to get there as Job did.
That we would be able to say.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the year, but now mine I see at thee, and I abhor myself and repent.
And dust.
And ashes.
Those ashes we know our God, which reminds us of all that is of the flesh that.
Has to be consumed.
So we just ask for blessing this afternoon on our souls.