CONSUMING FIRES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 4 August 1945, Page 8

CONSUMING FIRES

Meditation by Principal E.S. Kick, M.A., B.D. “Who among us shall dwell with the consuming fire?” —lsaiah xxxiii: 14. u Our God is a consuming fire.” —Hebrews xii: 29. Tl\e suggestion of these passages is very relevant to our present need and distress. The consuming fires of war have actually been experienced by millions of our fellow-creatures. Whole cities have gone up in smoke. Countless villages have been destroyed. Many holy and beautiful things, as well as many horrid and ugly things, have perished. We dare not even begin to imagine all the misery in all dands. Yet it may be that, as a better London arose from the famous conflagration of 1666 so a better world may arise from this incomparably vaster conflagration. Already mighty schemes of townplanning are under consideration. Most people are convinced that, if finance can be made available for war, it can and must be made available for reconstruction after the war. The consuming fires have lighted a new hope in the hearts of forwardlooking people in Britain and elsewhere. The devastation that these fires have caused' opens wonderful possibilities of building more worthy homes for the children and the future generations. * These Scripture passages, however, are metaphorical. The Isaiah passage represents the musings of sinners and hypocrites, who have discovered all too late what it is to incur the just indignation of the Most High. Isaiah saw in the disasters of his time the judgments of God on a degenerate and godless civilisation. The writer of the N.T. passage is thinking chiefly of the awful perils of apostasy from Christian faith. He holds that it is impossible for those who have been once enlightened and then have fallen away to be renewed again unto repentance. The Gospel is the noblest offer ever made by God to sinful men. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation?” The consequences of trifling with God are hardly less terrible than the consequences of scornfully rejecting Him. Such aspects ol religious and moral truth have been all too little stressed in modern preaching. We say that it is wrong to frighten people into Christian decision and discipleship. If so, we are wiser than the i Scripture and, it must be added, wiser than our Lord, Who never hesitated to appeal to the motive of fear. He told people not to fear those who could kill only the body, but to fear Him Who could destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Many people have been so misled by sentimental preaching that they imagine they can trade on the mercies of God and abuse His wondrous patience. Many forget that the love of God is a holy love : it is indeed “a consuming fire.” This is a moral universe. The judgments of God are abroad in the earth that the inhabitants thereof may learn righteousness. I suppose that we all agree with Mr Churchill that Hitler is an extremely wicked man. So also are his accomplices. The Germans are suffering, and will suffer, for their misplaced trust in knavish politics and brutal terrorism. The same is true of the Japanese. Yet candour requires the admission that, as long as the Nazis and the Japanese left us alone, we tried to “appease” them, though we knew very well that their crimes cried to heaven. Politicians and others forgot Gladstone’s dictum that “nothing which is morally wrong can ever be politically right.” In domestic affairs too we have tolerated and even defended all kinds' of manifest injustices. We built our social and economic structnre on the rotten foundations of greed and selfishness, and now we wonder at its manifest instability. Unless and until this nation turns to God, we shall continue to dwell with the consuming fires, whatever military victories we win. The same principle holds good for individuals. “The fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” God grant that we may be saved, though ‘‘too as by fire!”

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