I've known men in ministry who at one
time were men on fire for God, but
somewhere along the way the flame went out.
Whether it was from disappointment of an unfulfilled
dream or discouragement in ministry, whatever the reason,
the flame began to flicker down until it
became a wisp and then it was blown
out.
A man like that, in that condition, is
no use to anyone.
He becomes a Christian worker who does for
God only because he has an obligation to
do so.
There is no joy in his service to
the Lord.
There is a bitter taste in his mouth
for feeling he was duped to begin with
by doing what he did.
He won't go any further in his service
to God, and he won't go any deeper
in his relationship with God.
It's like a bad marriage of convenience where
both partners sleep with their backs turned against
the other.
There are some pastors in this condition.
Some wicked deacon roughed them up and hindered
the work of the ministry and hurt their
feelings.
Or perhaps some disappointment was too much for
them and whatever fire they had for God
dwindled down to a wisp of smoke.
Or perhaps they are a Christian who became
disenchanted by the institutional church or dissatisfied by
a preacher-in-general.
But whatever the reason is for the flame
going out in their walk with God, they
will never be satisfied if they remain where
they are and continue in that cold state.
There is a dire warning found in Hebrews
chapter 3, beginning in verse 7.
Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith today, if
ye will hear his voice, harden not your
hearts, as in the provocation, in the day
of temptation, in the wilderness, when your fathers
tempted me, proved me, and saw my works
forty years, wherefore I was grieved with that
generation, and said, They do always err in
their heart, and they have not known my
ways.
So I swear in my wrath, they shall
not enter into my rest.
Let me pause here, friends, because there is
a break in the text in verse 12,
as the writer of Hebrews issues a dire
warning to all his readers.
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any
of you an evil heart of unbelief in
departing from the living God.
But exhort one another daily, while it is
called to-day, lest any of you be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
I will stop there.
The Israelites in the wilderness were a great
disappointment to God.
He had delivered them from the bondage of
Egypt, worked wonders on their behalf at the
Red Sea, provided manna from heaven to satisfy
their hunger, and even made water flow from
a rock to quench their thirst.
But all they did was continually gripe and
complain, and voice their dissatisfaction.
They hardened their hearts against their God, and
against their appointed leader Moses, and they provoked
Almighty God by their grievous sins.
It was a time of provocation, our text
says.
I believe you don't have to be in
the desert to have wilderness of soul.
I believe bitterness toward another is a poisonous
root that chokes out all fruit.
I believe a follower of God can so
harden their heart that they become good for
nothing.
They block God's flow of blessing to their
life and family.
They are no longer sensitive to the leadings
of the Holy Spirit, and whatever fruit they
manage to produce comes only from the flesh,
and it doesn't last.
A person with a hardened heart is like
a lead balloon that cannot rise one inch
from the ground.
There it sits, in its own misery of
self-pity, and putrefies all it comes in
contact with.
Stagnant water is filthy.
When the flame goes out, it stays out
until that person has a fresh encounter with
God, and if they're honest with themselves, they
know their problem exists because of unbelief.
But there, in that mountaintop experience, the flame
is rekindled and stoked each day with a
new awareness of God and a burning love
for His Son, Jesus Christ.
We must do all we can to fan
the embers on the altar of our heart
and our love toward God and to one
another.
But if there is no hot pursuit of
God, there will be stagnation and a hardening
of the heart.
Only one is only left wondering what might
have been if God was allowed to have
His way.
There is a poem that's always been a
warning to me to never let the flame
go out and to stay on track for
God's plan for me.
Let me end my message, friends, by reading
it to you now.
When I stand at the judgment seat of
Christ and He shows His plan for me,
the plan of my life, as it might
have been, had He had His way and
I see how I blocked Him here and
checked Him there and I would not yield
my will, would there be grief in my
Savior's eyes, grief though He loves me still?
Would He have me rich and I stand
there poor, stripped of all but His grace,
while memory runs like a haunted thing down
the paths I cannot retrace?
Lord of the years that are left of
me, I give them to Thy hand.
Take me and break me and mold me
to the pattern that Thou hast planned.