Proverbs 6:27 Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?
Mount Ibu, a volcano on Halmahera island in Indonesia’s North Maluku province, erupted on Saturday, spewing hot lava and sending a column of smoke and ash soaring over three miles into the sky. It’s a reminder of how volatile Indonesia can be as it has nearly 130 active volcanoes. All of this volcanic activity reminded me of another explosion that took place in 1991.
Mount Pinatubo, dormant for over 500 years, began to erupt on June 12, 1991, and three days later exploded with twice the power of the 1980 Mount St. Helen’s eruption. The release of power blasted a cubic mile off the mountaintop and the earth shook for eight hours. The eruption produced an ash cloud that rose over 50,000 feet into the atmosphere. If that wasn’t enough, Typhoon Yunga then struck the island nation with fierce winds and torrential rains which mixed with the ash creating what the locals called “Black Saturday!”
The United States was forced to abandon and eventually close Clark Air Force base, located just a few miles from Mount Pinatubo, due to the devastating blanket of fallen ash. When a volcanologist was asked to account for the widespread damage which sent thousands of American soldiers and Filipinos fleeing, he replied, “When a volcano is silent for many years, people forget it’s a volcano and begin to treat it like a mountain.”
Now here’s a lesson from nature. We should always be aware of how our sinful nature has the potential to erupt. It would be a big mistake to ignore this possibility simply because it has lain dormant for a season…even a seemingly long one.
Solomon writes a profound statement in his book of Proverbs, which, when paraphrased goes something like this; “Can someone play with fire in his lap without incinerating his clothes?”
The enemy of our souls would love for us to believe that we can somehow play with sin, without it negatively affecting our spirit and our walk with the Lord — oh how deceptive Satan can be!
D.L. Moody was a fairly simple man and I love the way he dealt with sin. He said, “When you’re thinking sin, think scripture!”
Let’s be on guard! Sin is a dormant volcano which can erupt at ANY moment and set our house on fire. How do we prepare? First, by being aware of the possibility…then…; “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee”. [Psalm 119:11] Let’s meditate upon His Word, allowing it to sink deep into our minds and our hearts so that the only fire which burns there…is the fire of God’s Holy Spirit. Amen.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]The Apostle Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 10:6 against desiring evil as they did, would seem to point to the obvious sins – lying, stealing, adultery, fornication, etc. – and following their deliverance from slavery, many of the children of Israel were certainly guilty of some of these. But this passage in Numbers describes a type of sin we don’t normally consider: it was simply their desire for the foods they ate in Egypt.
When I was in school, it seemed they ran a “fire drill” at least once a year. A long, loud, kind of scary bell would sound and we knew it was either a real fire, or, more likely, just another drill. We were formed into lines, ushered down the halls, and out the doors we went. Of course, the point was practice….so we would be prepared for a real fire.
The children of Israel are facing yet another test, this one, even more severe than hunger– dehydration – which, unabated, quickly leads to a miserable death. Yet, now, every day they are also seeing the miracles of God, who is feeding them regularly with manna, and surrounding them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Once again, they fail the test, even in the midst of their daily witness of miracles. So even though the test is more severe, the evidence for trust is that much greater.
Is there something about miracles that makes them forgettable? Or is the problem with us? After journeying for a season the children of Israel were faced with hunger — another test. This time, naturally faced with starvation, they murmured against the Lord, AGAIN! You’d think they might begin to put it together that God truly wanted them to trust Him. Apparently not yet. The dire circumstances attacked their mass cerebral cortex (memory) and once again they went into attack mode, bitterly complaining in unbelief. The Ten Plagues, the pillar of fire, the Red Sea walk, the Egyptian chariot soup, none of these connected to the present hunger pangs. Nature trumped super-nature, and sadly, God Himself.
The Apostle Paul’s discourse in 1 Corinthians 10 recalls the great miracles God performed for the children of Israel during the time of the Exodus. Delivered from Egypt and Pharaoh’s slavery, they were dismayed to discover his maniacal rage pursuing them anew, driving them into a deadly corner and imminent destruction. Humanly speaking, their terror and panic was understandable. With their eyes they could only see the wrath of Egypt succeeding at last to utterly destroy them. In that state of mind, how might they have remembered the consecutive miracles God had wrought against Egypt which had brought them to this very place?
When Ruth pledged her alligence to Naomi and to the God of Israel, it wasn’t based on, “What ifs?” or circumstances. It was a faith rooted in her devotion to Naomi and God even to the point of death!
This season of the Resurrection also occurs during a significant Old Testament feast day, the feast of “Firstfruits” (Hebrew, “bikoreem”). When Yeshua (Jesus) rose from the dead he was the firstfruit of the resurrection. On that day the keys of Hell and Death were obtained by our Lord. The apostle Paul connected the resurrection with the feast of Firstfruits in his letter to the congregation at Corinith. “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”