p. 4 | Holy and Unholy Fire by G. W. Reaser

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 24, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 12.

Holy and Unholy Fire

By G. W. Reaser

BIBLE OBJECT LESSONS. No. 3.

Holy and Unholy Fire.

At a later period of the world’s history, God gave the leaders of His people minute instruction in regard to the building of a sanctuary, and the offering of sacrifices and sweet incense. When the sanctuary was completed, and the first offerings were presented in harmony with the instructions given, fire was sent by the Lord, and the sacrifice was consumed in the presence of those who offered it. Thus God manifested His approval of perfect obedience to His requirements. Not long thereafter, Nadab and Abihu offered incense before the Lord, and fire burst forth and devoured those that offered the incense.

What made the difference? Why, in the one case, was the offering consumed, and why in the other were those that were offered devoured? The answer is not difficult; in the first instance they obeyed the Lord. In the next, they had their own way, and “offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not.” They evidently reasoned that the Lord was “not very particular;” but the Lord here gives us a forcible object lesson, to demonstrate and emphasize the fact that He always means exactly what He says, and to show that He is no respecter of persons, but that all will be held responsible for the light which they have received.

Now to apply the lesson. Many professed Christians reason that God is not particular in regard to exact obedience to many of His requirements. They virtually say that “God does not mean what He says.” They fail to make distinction between the sacred and the common, and thereby become stranded on the same rock that caused the ruin of Nadab and Abihu. Do not the words of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah apply to such? “They have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” See also Ps. 119:126.

Men presume upon the love and long-suffering of God, and “because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” But when sentence is finally passed—

“Shall we hear from the lips of the Saviour The words, ‘Faithful servant, well done,’ Or, trembling with fear and with anguish, Be banished away from His throne?”

In that great day, shall we be among those to whom the presence of God is a consuming fire, or with that other company, altho not so large, to whom the presence of our God “is fulness of joy”?

Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

Of these men the record tells us that “they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown; and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them; wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?”

Then the Lord instructed Moses to say to the people that they were to separate themselves from these wicked men and touch nothing

of theirs, lest they be consumed in their sins. And when they had thus separated themselves, “the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up;” “they, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them; and they perished from among the congregation.” “And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.”

In the case in hand we have a most striking example of the passing of sentence, and the execution of judgment, upon those who, altho prominent among God’s people, failed to recognize the authority of the Creator, and make proper distinction between that which God had sanctified, or set apart for a sacred work, and that which He had not thus set apart. Let us profit by the lesson.

Will not the decision of our heavenly Father be the same in the exactly parallel case of refusing to recognize the distinction between the sacred and the common, the Sabbath of the Lord and the six working days? Or, will not judgment be as surely executed, altho delayed for a time, upon those who live in open violation of, and rebellion against, the authority of God as clearly expressed in His law? “Our God is a consuming fire”—not to the righteous, but to the sinner. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” Reader, are you willing to take the awful responsibility, to hazard the consequences of being an open violator of the divine law?

Saul Sent to Destroy the Amalekites.

Here is another striking example. There came a time in the history of the nation of the Amalekites when God saw that their cup of iniquity was full; they had sinned away their day of grace; their probation had closed, because they had become so hardened in sin that the Spirit of God could not convict them of sin, and thus lead them to repentance; wherefore, to avert the misery and suffering that would, of necessity, have been visited upon their posterity had they continued to live, God purposed to cut short their career, and so sent this message to Saul, the king of Israel, through the prophet Samuel: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, . . . Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not.” This command was prefaced by the caution, “Now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord.” Saul gathered his army together and went, but instead of obeying “the voice of the words of the Lord,” the record tells us that “Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them; but everything that was vile and refuse, that they utterly destroyed.”

When the prophet Samuel, at the direction of the Lord, began to reprove Saul for disobedience, the king tried to justify his course by saying: “Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.” King Saul’s doom was sealed; not long thereafter his rebellious life came to a tragic end, by his own suicidal act, of falling upon his sword.

Many professed followers of Christ to-day, who have the same right and power to choose for themselves as did Saul, persist in obeying(?) the Lord as he did, or, as they express it, “in the spirit, but not in the letter.”

They disregard the command of the Lord, yet claim to obey it by substituting the first for the seventh day of the week, and even ministers of the Gospel quote the fourth commandment as their authority for first-day observance, virtually saying with Saul of old, when confronted with the plain word of the Lord, “I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” Others say that they had as soon keep the seventh day, “according to the commandment,” as the first, if “the people” would only do it. Hear the word of the Lord: “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.”

Is not this the lesson that we should learn from the experience of Saul, that when the final reckoning is made up, those who persist in rejecting the Word of the Lord will as certainly be rejected from being subjects of God’s everlasting kingdom as was Saul from the temporal kingdom of Israel? Our heavenly Father can not consistently admit rebels into His eternal kingdom, no more than He could permit Satan to remain there, and constantly jeopardize the government of heaven, after his fall, which was simply rebellion against God’s perfect law. G. W. Reaser.

Oakland, Cal.

(Concluded next week.)