 How is it that God’s perfect fire consumes completely, yet leaves the repentant sinner unscathed? Listen to find out! 

<p> How is it that God’s perfect fire consumes completely, yet leaves the repentant sinner unscathed? Listen to find out! </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Ouachita Hills College

Scott Burgess

Fantastic Fire!

I hope this will be a fantastic start to your Sabbath.

And before we begin, I always like to ask the Lord to lead and then we'll have our message.

Father in heaven, we thank you for these Sabbath hours.

We thank you for getting us to this point, the end of the week, and each week we can finish by resting, not by scrambling harder.

We thank you now and pray that you will join us, that you will make thoughts clear, that you'll give us food to meditate on this evening and that will guide us in the week ahead.

May it prove a savor of life unto others.

May you use us to lead others to Jesus, we pray, for his sake.

All right, Well this evening we're going to have fantastic fire.

I just find that it helps things to stick in the mind here.

And so I'd like to start us off with this text right here.

Found in the book of James, oops, what happened there?

Well at any rate we're going to be hearing from the book of James right here.

Verses 2 through 4 of chapter 1 says this, count it all joy when you fall into manifold trials knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience." That's right.

"...but let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Okay, now based on some of the prayer requests we heard earlier I'm sure some of you have faced trials of some sort this week.

And was your first reaction to say yes, it was joyful?

It says, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

I put manifold here just so that it would match perfectly in English with Peter.

Well, maybe this is a trial, but anyways, so I'm going to go on.

Would it help if I unplugged here or should I do nothing?

Now let me put something that will actually appear on the screen here good I will touch nothing else apparently the devil doesn't want this message so all right anyways first Peter 1 6 through 7 says very much the same thing as James had it says ye greatly rejoice oh now for a season if need be, ye are in heaviness through, there it is, manifold trials, that 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." Okay, so there you have it again, rejoicing manifold trials and faith is involved right there.

Here it doesn't say that it produces patience, but the 2 texts together, James 1 and 1 Peter 1, complement each other.

So now here is a question, and you may have heard this question before, I think this answer would be a little bit different because I keep seeing more and more light on it.

According to the text that was just on the screen what is it that is more precious than gold?

Now some of you have heard this before, but you may not have heard this answer.

Others are thinking, I don't know, I sense a trap.

Well it turns out 1 way of answering the question is to go to Greek, of course, and it turns out if I could just put this back on the screen right here.

You see with those words on the third line leading into the fourth where it says being much more precious?

It turns out that that little phrase right there, well, okay.

That that is grammatically speaking, you know some languages have a bunch of genders, male, female, and neuter in Greek.

It turns out that being much more precious, that is neuter.

Well, when you look at the word trial and you look at the word faith, guess what?

1 of them is neuter, 1 of them is feminine.

So apparently, according to Greek grammar, it's the trial that's more precious.

Let's see if we can really nail this down here.

So, at this point we're thinking, well, I don't know, is it trial?

Oh, come on, should we go to inspiration?

Don't need the frozen here, all right, okay.

5T, page 578, it says the trial of faith is more precious than gold.

There it is, okay, the trial of faith is more precious than gold.

Okay, and then it goes on it says this, all should learn that this is a part of the discipline in the school of Christ which is essential to purify and refine them from the dross of earthliness.

They must endure with fortitude the taunts and attacks of enemies, and overcome all obstacles that Satan may place in their path to hedge up the way.

He will try to lead them to neglect prayer and to discourage them in the study of the scriptures.

Now just be honest here it's okay anybody felt I won't even ask a time frame ever felt a little bit dry and thinking I really just prayer just doesn't it's not really enticing okay nobody's afraid everyone's afraid to admit it okay okay anybody not felt like reading the Bible?

Okay, we got a few more there, okay, okay, it's okay, you're not getting graded here.

Besides, people might be encouraged if they know that you're not the only 1 that goes through these periods, okay?

Now, according to this, it appears to agree with what we said about Greek.

Those who hold fast their faith unto the end will come forth from the furnace of trial as fine gold 7 times purified.

Of this work, the prophet Isaiah says, I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.

When in trouble, remember that, what's that word highlighted there?

Faith tried in the furnace of affliction is more precious than gold tried with fire.

Remember that there is 1 watching every movement to see when the last particle of dross is taken away from your character.

It is then that you are counted more precious than the golden wedge of Ovid.

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Fantastic Fire!

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