SALTED win' FIRE
DID you think we had finished our journey last evening? So we have, in one sense, but in another we are still upon it. In spirit there already; in body down here on the earth, as pilgrims and strangers. Alas! the song dies upon our lips, the glory fades from our view; the deep realities of that bright Home grow distant to us; while the roar of this world's restless sea waxes louder every moment. Not yet the glory— Home; not yet the Father's presence-chamber; not yet the full inheritance of light and love and song; not yet the unchanging sphere of eternal purpose. But now the soul pent in a mortal body; but now the groans of this wrecked creation; aye, now the weary journey, the tireless watch, the desperate strife, the salting Fire, the daily walk of the saint's responsibility. Do you tremble as you realize the fact? for though out of the Land of Loneliness forever, it is in the Spirit only you can enjoy a foretaste of the glad inheritance "reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1).
"Kept by the power of God," and "salted with Fire." Little should we enjoy the scene there in spirit, but for this "salting with Fire" on the wilderness journey. It is the Father's provision for our safety through the journey of life; for we have, as it were, come back to walk upon the earth. How strange! a heavenly family, starting from Christ in glory, and now living on earth in a "mixed condition," that is, still linked to Adam by our bodies, and united to a glorified Christ by the Spirit. Living in the midst of death, light-giving in the midst of darkness; Love-emitting in the midst of coldness and of selfishness. Whence the power for all this? "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:44Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. (1 John 4:4)). "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us." The Power and the warmth are of heaven, not of earth. The Fire of God glows in each believer's heart, for this strange family is of heavenly origin and belongs to heaven, and has therefore the nature which befits heaven—love.
Many years ago, when I was quite a little child, a great event happened in our family, and to this day I remember quite distinctly how I first heard about it. I was playing in the garden near my home, when I saw my father walking in the conservatory. I ran into him at once, and he looked down on me very gravely, and said: "You have a little sister." I hardly knew what he meant, but very soon afterward I was taken into my mother's room to see the new baby. There lay the little helpless thing, which had been born into our family. Its tiny feet and rolled up hands were perfect, but useless as yet for the life it would have to live as a person on this earth; but for all that it had inherited the nature of its parents, and that nature they had inherited from their parents, and so on all the way back to Adam. The baby child had taken Adam's sinful nature—Self—because it had been born of his stock.
So each member of this strange family among whom we now find ourselves upon the earth has been "born of God." "Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God" (1 John 4:77Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (1 John 4:7)). That does not mean that we have as yet spiritual bodies; but it means that we have been "made partakers of the Divine nature" (2 Peter 1:44Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Peter 1:4)). The nature of God is love. "Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God" (1 John 4:77Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (1 John 4:7)). "God is love." God's great love has flowed out to us. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" ( 4:9).
If this wonderful love is within us by the Holy Spirit, it must flow out to others. It is a living love, a burning love—it cannot be still, it cannot be idle; it is not sentiment, which is natural feeling—a feeling without power; a pleasing sensation which Self enjoys; it is a Divine principle which, like the Fire that glowed on the altar of old, comes from God and goes up to God. "Every one that loveth Him that begat"—that is, God—"loveth him also that is begotten of Him" (v. 1). This is the family love. One family in dwelt by one Spirit, with the same nature love, the same Father, the same Home before us. How happy we ought to be! We each have One Center—the Father's loving heart; and we are each drawn to that One Center by the One Spirit. As we approach the Center we get closer and closer to one another. It must be so.
But do you say: "It does not seem like this at all, for the children of God are scattered far and wide from one another on earth, and do not get on well together." I will tell you how this has come to pass. Self is busily stirring, urged on by Satan, to draw our hearts aside from the one Center. If each of us followed the Lord this divergence would not be, and this is why we have to be "salted with fire." Self is, so to speak, no longer us, but it is dross. Self has to be purged away bit by bit from us. Only the Fire of love from heaven that burns upon the altar of our hearts can do this for us. This is "salting by fire." The dross must be purged away, and as it is purged away the love of God grows warmer within us, and we are drawn nearer to the Center, and so nearer to all God's children.
One morning a letter was put upon my table, and as I looked at it I saw that it had a foreign postmark. From whom can this be? I said to myself, as I opened it. I soon found that it had come from a young girl who was at school in Germany; she had been away from her home for twelve long months. But she was not like a poor orphan who had no parents and no home; she knew her father and her mother, and she had tasted the enjoyments of a very happy home. She had been sent away from them all for a time for her own good: to learn necessary lessons in a far-off land. The letter was a very loving one, but she was feeling lonely so far away from home. She wrote: "We are having dreadful weather now, but I do not mind it, for it seems much more winterly and consequently nearer to coming home. I am looking forward very much to seeing home again, and all the dear faces there; sometimes I get such a fit of delight at the thought of going home that I do not know what to do with myself!" Does not an ecstasy sometimes fill your heart as you think that the school time on earth must soon be over, and the glad summons to a Father's arms and a Father's Home must soon sound in your ears? No orphan now you tread the wilderness, but at school to learn your appointed lessons from a Father's hand, subject to a Father's chastening rod, and guarded by a Father's watchful care.
I once stood at a window by the seaside watching the scene without. I was weak and ill, and my eyes rested longingly on the golden sands, over which the rippling waves were advancing little by little, under the summer sunshine. My feeble steps could not reach that lovely scene; I had not strength to wander over the yielding sands, to climb from rock to rock, or to gather the rainbow-tinted seaweeds that were strewn upon that shore. My heart was very sad, for months of ever increasing pain and weakness had left me little or no hope of ever again being able to wander about at liberty in the fresh free air. Presently, as I looked down upon the fair scene, I saw the people on those sands begin to move with one accord towards the steps which led from the shore to the cliffs on which I was. The tide was coming in, and one and all began plowing their way through the deep, soft sands over which the water was advancing, to a place of safety. They passed, and the tide came sweeping on; when suddenly my eye lighted on the solitary figure of a tall, manly looking man, striding with hasty steps along the farther coast, making for the way up the cliffs. Clasped tightly to his breast, and evidently sleeping in peaceful unconsciousness, lay a little girl. What did she know of the danger of the rising tide, or of the difficulty which her baby feet would have found in plowing through those yielding sands? Nothing. Step by step the loving father trod along his way. What cared he for the weariness of the path? He thought only of the little treasure clasped so tightly to his loving heart. His love was set upon her, and to satisfy that deep love of a father's heart, it was his pleasure to bear her to her home in safety. But what did she know about that love as she dreamed her baby dreams lying in the cradle of those strong arms? What did she know of all the cares and anxieties, and hopes and fears of which she was the subject? Or what did she know of the dangers from which his love shielded her, or of the self-sacrifice with which he tended her? My eyes filled. I too had a Father, and why should I not confide in His love and His care? Was He not bearing me on in the arms of His love over the desert sands, where my feet might have been set fast, but for His chastening hand? "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?" (Heb. 12:77If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? (Hebrews 12:7)).
We are away from home, at school, and if we do not learn our lessons properly, if we let self-will and self-love become the motives of our lives, the Spirit of God is grieved; He can no longer tell us of the Father's love, the Father's Home. We may know it all in our heads, as the truth of Scripture, but the warm glow of love dies down, and the conscious enjoyment of Relationship is gone from us. Then God's chastening hand comes in, because the Father's heart yearns over His wayward children, and yearns for their love, and the Fire has to do its purifying work. "For every one shall be salted with fire." It is the Father's provision for the way. "Tongues like as of fire sat upon each of them."
Why do we salt things? We salt things to preserve them, to keep them from corruption. Your Father knows well that corrupt Self is still within you, and what can He do to protect you? He has sent you His Fire, and full of the glow of His warm love to you, Self, sinful Self, can be kept down in the place of death. The Fire from heaven must purge him away as dross is purged from gold and silver. Do you not know that if you love any one very deeply, any flaw in that person's character or ways is the greatest sorrow you have? Oh! you would do anything, anything if you could only make that dear one all that your fond heart desires him to be. But you cannot. Divine love can. Divine love can bear no flaw in the objects of its deep affection. "Be ye holy, for I am holy," says the God of Love. He would see His children here displaying all the loveliness of that One, now the "First-born among many brethren," who ever glorified Him when on the earth: and this is why He would salt us with Fire to keep Self down in death.
We shall not need this action of the Fire by-and-by, when we shall be seen in bodies like Christ's, in "the manifestation of the sons of God"; but while we are in the children's place, in this mixed condition we require indeed to be "salted with fire," that as obedient children we might be found displaying all the loveliness of that One who ever glorified God when on the earth. The Fire has to make us vessels meet for the Master's use, Long ago, when I was quite a small child, I was traveling with my parents and two brothers in South Wales. My father took us to a town called Merthyr Tydvil. He wanted to show us how iron was smelted. He said it was a wonderful sight, and he should wait until nightfall to show it to us, because it all looked so much more beautiful at night. While the daylight lasted I felt very brave, but as the shadows of night closed over the town and I saw from the windows of the hotel dozens of flaring chimneys, I felt rather nervous. "Are those chimneys on fire?" I asked my father. "No," he said; "they are blast furnaces, and it is there the iron is being smelted."
When the time came, instead of going to my bed as usual, we all started out in the darkness, and drove into the yard of one of the ironworks I followed my father very closely, for I heard the most terrible noises issuing from some of the sheds, and very soon we were standing in the full glow of the fiery light from several of the furnaces. I cannot tell you all I saw, for was much too young to understand what it all meant; but I remember that the clamor was fearful, and that half-naked men were rushing hither and thither in the fiery glow, while the blasts were roaring, the hammers clanging, and the men shouting. I was ready to drop with terror, and when we were led up a little narrow, winding staircase where an awful rushing noise was to be heard, it required all my resolution not to show my fear; especially when the big man who was showing us over the place caught up one of my brothers and set him on his shoulders. I cannot tell you how I wished somebody would pick me up, for the melted iron splashed about like water, and I thought we might all be burnt alive.
After we came from that dreadful little passage where the roaring of the blast was to be heard, we saw something very beautiful. We stood in a long, low building, where the ground, the walls, the roof were all as black as soot, and then suddenly we saw a brilliant gleam of fiery light, and we felt an intense heat. A furnace had been opened, and into the awful raging flames masses of coal and iron-ore were being tossed. Then there was a shout, and some half-dressed men, almost as black as everything about, came rushing along with what they told us was "a mold." This mold they placed under a tap, which they turned, and immediately a glowing stream of molten iron flowed into the mold. It ran like fiery water, and it was so very pretty that I forgot my fears, even when the drops of liquid fire came splashing about the spot where I was standing.
The iron was coming out of the fiery furnace fit to be molded and hammered into useful things. But the coal had been destroyed, it was only fuel to the flames; it came out no more, but disappeared in the raging furnace. To the coal which was made of tree-ferns and wooded matter grown out of the earth, the fire was a destroyer; but to the rough black iron dug out of the rock it was a beautifier and a refiner, for it freed it from the dross which polluted it, and the metal came flowing out of the furnace, bright with a new beauty, and soft enough to be molded to the owner's use. I think if the coal could have spoken it would have cried out, "How dreadful is this fire!" But the voice of the iron would have said, "How useful is this fire. What should I have been worth without its purifying heat? It has been the making of me." What a difference! And yet the difference was not in the fire, but in the substance exposed to its power.
Do you remember how we spoke of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were cast into the burning fiery furnace? Those were the fires of persecution, and these purging fires have been permitted to try the faith of God's children. "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried by fire, might be found unto_ praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:77That 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 honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: (1 Peter 1:7)). Nothing that is of Christ can perish in the furnace. What then will it consume? The bonds—the ties that bind you, and that hamper you, the dross of Self that dims the luster of the vessel that should "be meet for the Master's use." Do you think that one atom that is of Christ in you will perish in those flames? Impossible! I have sometimes heard a mother scolding a naughty, disobedient child; and then turning round in excuse, she will add, "I have spoiled the child." Do you think Love ever spoiled a child? Never. Sentiment does it; and if you only think what the word "spoiled" means you will see in a moment that our God could never spoil His children. "Spoiled" means unfit for its proper use. The spoiled child is no comfort to its parents, no comfort to its brothers and sisters, and it is its own worst plague. True Love chastens and corrects, purging away all that mars the beauty of its object.
I told you once of a young man who made Jacob's vow, and who thought he could make a bargain with God? That young man, now growing old instead of getting what be wanted, found life to be a furnace of trial to him. Blast upon blast of fiery trial swept over him; it sometimes seemed as if lie must have perished in the fierce ordeal. But has he perished? No. He was of Christ; and brighter and yet brighter grew the precious metal as the fire of adversity purged away the once unbroken will of the flesh. Does he say, "My life has been a failure"? No! He says, "I would not have been without one of my sorrows." True Love could not give him his wishes, and see him a spoiled child. Divine Love would have him a vessel "meet for the Master's use." If you are full of sorrow just now, if tears are in your eyes and your weary heart is aching with some deep grief, fear not; our Father chastens for our profit, that we might be "partakers of His holiness." "God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?" (Heb. 12:77If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? (Hebrews 12:7)). It is not by faith that you can enter into the joys of Relationship. Light cannot give them to you. It is by Love alone, by the "glow of heat" from heaven that these deep and sacred joys are known by the soul. Why do we know so little of them? Because our enjoyment depends upon our state. Because we grieve the Holy Spirit of God, who alone can keep the warm glow of Divine affections bright within us, and by whom alone we can mount the ladder of light and dwell in Spirit in our Father's Home above.
When the children of Israel went to war and took vessels of gold or silver, iron or brass from their enemies, they had to pass them through the fire before they might use them. Everything that could "abide the fire" had to go through the fire to cleanse it for their use; and do you think that the vessels that the Master has taken from the Enemy will not have to "be salted with fire" to be cleansed and meet for His use? But that was not all, that was not enough. "Nevertheless it shall be purified with the water of separation" (Num. 31:2323Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean: nevertheless it shall be purified with the water of separation: and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water. (Numbers 31:23)). Through the purifying blast of Fire and through the sanctifying waves of Death leads the path that conducts your soul to the conscious enjoyment of your Father's love and Home. Believe me, it is no light thing, no pretty story that a child might love; it is a solemn, deep reality, that if you would answer even now to God's purpose of love for you, if you would enjoy even now the knowledge of the Father revealed to you by the Son, and the foretaste of your Home, it must be through self-judgment, and through the waters of Death that you must go. Do you tremble? Stay. "There is no fear in love." Why should you fear? Love that has felt the fiery blast, as you can never feel it, Love that has passed under those deep waves as you can never pass through them, alone—can that Love be other than tender towards you?
We should have confidence in our Father's love? Confidence is a sweet word. "My child," said a loving earthly father to his daughter one day, as he handed her a letter with a broken seal—"my child, I am very sorry, but I opened this letter without seeing that it was addressed to you." With a sudden spring that girl threw herself upon his breast. "Open them all, father dear!" she cried. "Do you think I would have any secrets from my father." That was confidence, blessed, happy confidence betwixt the father and the child, the child and the father. No secrets from him; perfect trust in his love and his wisdom. And your confidence is what your Father asks. Confidence will have no secrets, no reserves from Him. Confidence will confide to Him every step of the way; will leave itself body and soul and spirit in His loving, faithful Hands. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love"(1 John 4:1818There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)).
We are at the end of our journey now, and we see that "our God is a consuming Fire"; but perhaps you can say now in loving, trusting confidence, "and we would not have it otherwise."
The other day as I passed down a street near which I live, I paused for a moment before what had once been a house. It was then a ruin, for fire had been at work upon it. The walls, made of brick burnt in the fire, were still standing; the grates, made of iron smelted in the fire, were lying amidst the rubbish, unconsumed; but all that had been of wood, had been destroyed; the roof, robbed of its support, had fallen; the fire had tested that house, and had consumed all that could not stand its fiery breath.
What of all our so-called good works will stand the Fire by-and-by? Only that which has been purified by the Fire will stand the Fire? Vainly shall we look for all the grand edifices that we thought the wisdom, the influence, the eloquence, and the wealth of the first man Adam, had reared for God; all must disappear when He comes, who is "as a refiner's fire." Nothing but that which is of Christ can stand the test; nothing but that which has had its source from the warmth of Divine love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost—nothing but that will stand the fiery ordeal of the coming day.
Do you realize it, as you teach those children in your class? or as you patiently stitch at those garments for the poor? For whom are you doing it? Do you realize it as you visit from house to house? For whom are you thus going forth? Does the love of Christ constrain you "Because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:14,1514For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:14‑15)).
And oh! the Church! Who stands amidst its vast pretentious worldly edifice in these last days? Who gazes on "the wood, the hay, the stubble" of earthly doctrines and human inventions built into souls by unsent builders? He whose "eyes are as a flame of fire, and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters" (Rev. 1:14,1514His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; 15And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. (Revelation 1:14‑15)). And in the far, far future what glimpse have we still of this ever-existing Fire? "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death" (Rev. 20:1414And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. (Revelation 20:14)). The Fire swathes in its flaming embrace all that has opposed or exalted itself against our God.
But let us pause. Our talking’s are over; and let us wonder as we see that the Fire that circles the throne of the great "I am"; the Fire that guarded the way to the Tree of Life in Eden; the Fire that found its sheath in the Christ of God on Calvary's Cross, that Fire has come out through the avenue of Death to be the Guard, the Guide, the Purifier, and the Comfort of the children of God. Aye, the very chariot that shall bear us up as upon "eagle's wings" to our Father's Home in the heavens.
Look up, O Soul! and see upon the sapphire throne enwrapt in a self-enfolding Fire, in the very center of that gorgeous scene, where shadeless Light and glowing Fire enfold each other; where Holiness and Love are wrapped together; where Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other; see there, "the likeness as the appearance of a Man above upon it" (Ezek. 1:2626And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. (Ezekiel 1:26)).
" Father, Thy sovereign love has sought
Captives to sin, gone far from Thee;
The work that Thine own Son hath wrought
Has brought us back in peace and free.
And now as sons before Thy face,
With joyful steps the path we tread,
Which leads us on to that blest place
Prepared for us by Christ our Head.
Thou gav'st us, in eternal love,
To Him to bring us home-to Thee,
Suited to Thine own thought above,
As sons like Him, with Him to be,
In Thine own house. There love divine
Fills the bright courts with cloudless joy
But 'tis the love that made us Thine,
Fills all that house without alloy.
O boundless grace! what fills with joy,
Unmingled, all that enter there
God's nature, love without alloy,
Our hearts are given e'en now to share.
God's righteousness with glory bright,
Which with its radiance fills that sphere;
E'en Christ, of God the power and light
Our title is that light to share.
O Mind Divine, so must it be
That glory all belongs to God:
O Love Divine, that did decree
We should be part, through Jesus blood.
O keep us, Love Divine, near Thee,
That we our nothingness may know,
And ever to Thy glory be
Walking in faith while here below."