It’s hard to keep the fire lit sometimes.
Recently, we’ve been studying the lives of Elijah and Elisha, two prophets of God in 1 and 2 Kings. In the story so far, a lot of fires have burned. When the king and queen of Israel were supporting the cult of a Canaanite god, Baal, Elijah called for a showdown with Baal’s prophets. After Baal’s prophets screamed, danced, and cut themselves to beg their god to send down fire from heaven, there wasn’t a spark. Elijah made a simple request to Yahweh, the true God, and fire rained down to consume wood, water, and stone.
The fire of God also rained down on the messengers of that same king’s son when they came to demand that Elijah come and meet with him. Twice, 50 soldiers were incinerated for their impertinence.
What’s with the fire?
That king’s name was Ahab, and his queen was Jezebel. Like a lot of Israel’s rulers, they were guilty of syncretism – mixing the worship of one god with another. From the point of view of their world in the Ancient Near East, this made total sense: if there’s a god that is in charge of storms, lighting, and fertility, and there’s another god who can make sure you’re victorious in battle, why not worship them both and maximize your potential for success? The only problem: Yahweh isn’t some low-tier nature deity or a territorial god. He’s the creator of the universe and the Master of every territory. He doesn’t share worship.
Yahweh is even presented in scripture as fire personified: Hebrews 12:28-29 says, “let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”
Another place where fire shows up often in the Bible is in the context of worship. Old Testament offerings and sacrifices were often offered to God in fire – either to be fully burned up as a gift to him, or to be cooked as a meal to be shared. Incense was burned as an offering to the Lord. On on a few occasions, the very fire used to offer worship to God turned back on the worshiper, when they tried to offer worship in a way God didn’t command (like with Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10).
In the New Testament, fire shows up in a lot of ways: purifying, testing, judging, or destroying. It’s the way the Holy Spirit manifested himself to Jesus’ disciples when he first empowered them in a whole new way (Acts 2:3). James says that our words can be like a fire, warning us to be careful of our speech. In Revelation 2:18, the eyes of the Son of God are said to be like flames.
Fire represents the intensity of the holiness of God. It’s a flame that can either purify and protect us and set our own hearts aflame with love and devotion to him, or reveal our impurity and ultimately destroy us. What Jesus wants among his people are hearts that are devoted to him in lives of purified worship, fueled by hearts that are warm to him. Jesus says in Matthew 24:9-14 that the threat of falling away in the darkest times is that “the love of many will grow cold.”
In our world, like the world of Elijah and Elisha, when you’re trying to love God it can feel like you’re alone. The only one trying to be devoted to him. It can be tempting to let your love grow cold, even to commit the same kind of syncretism that got Ahab and Jezebel in such trouble. For us, it’s not the worship of other literal gods that usually tempts us: it’s the lie that Jesus plus something else will satisfy our needs and answer our fears. Jesus plus having political power. Jesus plus having money. Jesus plus being popular. Our world feels pretty unstable in a lot of ways, and these (and so many other) “gods” can look like promising ways to maximize our potential for success.
This Sunday (Aug. 11, 2024) we’re studying another story where the desire for worldly things gets in the way of devotion to God (2 Kings chapter 3). And we’re singing a hymn by Isaac Watts (who died in 1748) that confesses how vulnerable we all are to this kind of idolatry, and to losing the warmth of our love. Our version of the hymn uses a new tune, and borrows the chorus from Light the Fire, written by Bill Maxwell in 1986. We added the new melody and combined the two songs in 2008.
Take a few minutes to listen to this song and take in the lyrics. These words are old, and people don’t talk this way any more, so it takes a little effort to pick up what Watts is laying down. Here’s a little bit of help interpreting some of the old vocabulary:
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, with all thy quickening power
Kindle a flame of sacred love in these cold hearts of ours.
“Quickening” is an old word for “making alive.” In these opening lines, we’re asking the Spirit of God to come and use his power to give life, stoking the fire of worshipful love in our hearts.
Look how we grovel here below, fond of these trifling toys!
Our souls can neither fly nor go to reach eternal joys.
In other words: look at us down here; we’re obsessed with things that don’t mean anything. We can’t even imagine, much less pursue, eternal, real joys.
In vain we tune our formal songs; in vain we strive to rise
Hosannas languish on our tongues, and our devotion dies
Dear Lord, shall we ever live at this poor dying rate?
Our love so faint, so cold to Thee, and Thine to us so great!
We sing and it means nothing; we say “hosanna” but it’s a waste. Are we going to go on forever like this?? In a living death?
The chorus is so simple:
Light the fire in my soul
Fan the flame, make me whole
Lord, you know where I’ve been
So light the fire in my heart again
The final verse makes a plea based on Romans 5:5. In the ESV (the Bible translation we usually use) it says, “and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” But the King James Version that Isaac Watts read says it this way: “and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” And so the lyric says:
Come Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, with all thy quickening power
Come shed abroad the Savior’s love and that will kindle ours.
Jesus, pour your love into our hearts, and that will keep the flame of love in our own hearts going.
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