Fire

Daniel 3:18-28 - But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated. And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. Because the king's order was urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.


Daniel 6:23 - Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.

Job 13:15 - Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.

Psalm 26:1 - Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.

Application:

· That the lions were ravenously hungry was no obstacle to the Lord’s rewarding Daniel’s faith by saving his life.
· Hope is to wait for something. Waiting may or may not be patient, and it may or may not be with a positive expectation
· A blameless life means moral integrity, not sinless perfection. Being godly means obeying and trusting. Am I obeying and trusting Him?
· Whether God decides to rescue me or not my faith should be fully resigned to His will. Is my faith fully resigned to His will?

All Scripture verses taken from ESV

Judgment And Raging Fire

Hebrews 10:26-29 – For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?


Hebrews 9:27-28 - And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

2 Thessalonians 1:5-8 - This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it )just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

1 Corinthians 6:11 – And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Ephesians 4:30 – And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Hebrews 2:2-4 - For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Hebrews 12:25 - See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

Hebrews 13:20-21 – Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Exodus 24:8 - And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Application:

· I will face judgment after death. Christ will appear again bringing salvation from that judgment
· Jesus the Judge will be awesome and devastating, and He will instill fear in the hearts of unbelievers
· I need to live in a way that is consistent with being righteous
· I should not cause the Holy Spirit sorrow by my sin
· If failure to follow and obey the law came with retribution, then neglecting salvation through Christ comes with more dangerous retribution
· Christ warns me and challenges me to persevere in the faith
· The new covenant has been established forever
· Only after I agree to obey the Lord can I participate in His covenant with Him

All Scripture verses taken from ESV

Fire

Hosea 7:3-4,7 - “They delight the king with their wickedness, the princes with their lies. They are all adulterers, burning like an oven whose fire the baker need not stir from the kneading of the dough till it rises…All of them are hot as an oven; they devour their rulers. All their kings fall, and none of them calls on me.


Hosea 4:2 - There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.

Hosea 10:13-14 - But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors, the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be devastated—as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children.

Hosea 3:1

Hosea 4:13

Application:

· Where God is not acknowledged, moral uprightness disappears.
· Am I living a lie? Do I live by lies?
· Have I been unfaithful to God?
· Are my morals eroding?
· I fall when I do not call on the Lord.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Refined By Fire

1 Peter 1:6-9 - In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Psalm 66:10 - For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver.

2 Corinthians 4:17 - For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

Romans 6:22 - But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

Conclusions:

• From one point of view, times of distress constitute a testing of God’s people as to their trust in and loyalty to God
• The metaphor is borrowed from the technology of refining precious metals, which included heating the metals in a crucible to see if all impurities had been removed
• Seen in the perspective of eternity, the Christian’s difficulties, whatever they may be, diminish in importance
• By comparison, the eternal glory is far greater than all the suffering one may face in this life
• Slavery to God produces holiness, and the end of the process is eternal life
• There is no eternal life without holiness
• Anyone who has been justified will surely give evidence of that fact by the presence of holiness in his life

Application:

• Do you trust in God and are you loyal to Him?
• Do you see your difficulties from the perspective of eternity?
• Are you a slave to God?

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Conclusions derived from NIV Study Bible

Set On Fire By Hell

James 3:4-9 - Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.

John 8:44 - You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Luke 16:23 - In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.

Genesis 1:26 - Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Conclusions:

• Jesus clearly excluded the idea of the universal fatherhood of God
• “You want to carry out your father’s desire” points to determination of will
• The Jews problem was basically spiritual, not intellectual
• Being oriented toward Satan, the Jews were bent on murder and eventually would succeed
• Truth is foreign to Satan and those who are his
• Hades is the place to which the wicked dead go to await the final judgment
• That torment begins in Hades is evident from the plight of the rich man
• The location of Abraham’s side is not specified, but it is separated from Hades by an impassable chasm
• Hades includes the torment that characterizes hell
• Some understand Jesus description of Abraham’s side and Hades in a less literal way
• God speaks as the Creator-King, announcing His crowning work to the members of His heavenly court
• Since man is made in God’s image, every human being is worthy of honor and respect; he is neither to be murdered or cursed
• Image includes such characteristics as righteousness and holiness and knowledge
• Believers are to be conformed to the likeness of Christ and will someday be like Him
• Man is the climax of God’s creative activity, and God has crowned him with glory and honor and made him ruler over the rest of His creation
• Since man was created in the image of the divine King, delegated sovereignty was bestowed on him

Application:

• Do you have spiritual problems?
• Where are you going to spend eternity?
• Are you conformed to the likeness of Christ?

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Conclusions derived from NIV Study Bible