The Unquenchable Fire
from Sunrise Service #197
Uranda February 11, 1951
The patterns that human beings
tend to accept as being fixed and more or less permanent are changed. If it
were not for the reality of change we would have little hope. The conditions that
now are in the world would not be satisfactory to anyone if they were to be made
permanent. Man is making tremendous efforts to bring change about, with all kinds
of plans and ideas, but we know that man cannot successfully change himself. We
know that those improvements which are undertaken on the basis of high ideals but
in human strength are not successful. There is, then, the evident need of change,
and yet the fact is that man of himself cannot produce the essential change.
I would like to read to
you a few words from the third chapter of Matthew, that they may help focalize
meditation and realization. One cannot read or hear these words without
recognizing and feeling the fire, the earnestness, the zeal, with which they
were first spoken. They are the words of John, the Baptist, introducing the
Master’s Ministry:
"Then went out to him
Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, And were
baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins… I indeed baptize you with
water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose
shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and
with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor,
and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with
unquenchable fire."
Let us meditate for a
little time on this introduction to our Master's Ministry on earth—the concluding words: "But he will burn up the chaff with
unquenchable fire." We know that fire to be the Fire of God's Love; we
rejoice in the assurance that the chaff, that which is not of God's perfect
Plan, shall be burned away; but there is one word here that is of particular
significance, something that brings our hearts great joy, a feeling of assurance,
confidence in the outworking of God's Plan—that word, unquenchable. We recognize that many human beings have been inclined to conjure up frightful imaginings
in relationship to "unquenchable fire," but to us it is a delightful word,
a word in which we rejoice.
Looking back a little in
history, we note that there was a great effort, even while our Master walked on
earth, to quench that Fire. Those who were attempting to quench the Fire
thought they had done so when they sent our LORD and KING to the ignominy of
the cross, but it was an unquenchable Fire which He released on earth. As soon
as His followers began, according to their highest understanding at the time,
to preach the Gospel, and there was response thereto, there was a tremendous effort
made to quench that Fire. The efforts to quench the Fire became so violent that
the world was ushered into what is historically called, "The dark
ages." But the Fire was not quenched. No matter how many suffered
martyrdom, no matter how many were thrown to the lions, no matter if two
thousand Huguenots were put to the sword in one day, no matter what was done by
human beings in their efforts to quench that Fire, it still remained.
Sometimes it appeared that
only a spark here and there remained, but the Fire of God's Love would burst
out again. In the face of all human efforts to quench that Fire, in the face of
all the godlessness, in the face of all the lawlessness, in the face of all the
darkness, the Fire would again and again reveal itself—and it was not quenched.
We see how there was a great resurgence of that Fire made manifest in Europe,
and the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries began to see it manifesting more
vigorously, and something of that Fire has spread around the world, reaching
into the hearts and lives of all people in some manner. There has not lived on
earth for some little time—a century or two perhaps we could say—a man or woman
or child whose life has not in some manner been affected or influenced by that
Fire as it was released and made manifest by our LORD, Jesus Christ. No matter
how godless the individual may have been, no matter how remote from so-called
religious or church activities, that life was influenced; it was different because
that Fire was in the hearts and lives of others who lived at the same time.
As we noted, change is most
essential. When we look at the world as it is, we know that change must come,
and we should recognize our individual responsibilities and privileges in helping
to promote that change in the right direction. We cannot just sit and trust
that the change will come. We must do our part, but if we attempt to do that
part which we conceive to be ours, in human strength and human wisdom, we will
fail and be no better than those who seek to change the world into a vast camp
of tyranny. Man of himself cannot achieve these things. That unquenchable Fire
of God's Love is absolutely essential if we are, ourselves, to be changed, and
if we are to let God’s Will be done in us so that we may promote that change in
the world.
We cannot be successful in
promoting this change in other places if we spend our days resisting that
change that is essential in ourselves. We can find a multitude of people who
would be happy to see things change far away—but while they would like to
support that change over there, there is no fire burning in heart and soul
which promotes a change in themselves. Only to the degree that we let ourselves be
changed can we be successful in helping others change in the right direction.
This Unquenchable Fire which has withstood every onslaught down through the
centuries, is alive—it is here, it is available to anyone anywhere in all the
world, and all over our fair land there are those who, to their highest understanding,
are dedicated to God's Service.
What is wrong? Why the
feeble, stumbling efforts in the United Nations Assembly? Why the hesitancy and
uncertainty in the Capitol of our own Country? Why the confusion in high places?
Because those to whom responsibility has been given are to be condemned?
Because they are not doing their jobs properly? Oh, no doubt they make
mistakes. Is that where the blame should rest?—that we should condemn our high officials
and find fault with them? Such an attitude is blindness of the worst sort, an
attitude wherein the individual wants change over there but is refusing to
accept it in himself.
If this Fire which is unquenchable
were allowed to burn in the hearts and lives of all the mass of our citizenry
here in the United States of America, would there be fumbling in Washington?
Would there be uncertainty in the U.N.? No, it is not our President who is at
fault, or our Secretary of State, or our Ambassador to the United Nations
Assembly. It is the American people that are at fault, because they are not
letting that unquenchable Fire burn so freely and so fully, so vibrantly, that
there is a spirit of support back of those who carry official responsibility.
There needs to be a Light flaming from the hearts of the people that dispels
the darkness and lights the Way for those who carry that official
responsibility. Is there confusion in Washington? If it is so, then there is
confusion in the people of all our states, of all our communities. We cannot
have something better in Washington than we have in ourselves.
The Spirit of the
Resurrection needs to begin to work as never before in our lives and in the
lives of all those around us. The Spirit of that Resurrection must be allowed
to have force in the world now. I praise God for the privilege we have of being
Citizens of the United States of America, but we cannot complain, properly,
about confusion in high places when we allow confusion to reign in our own hearts
and lives, when we allow self-centeredness to breed all forms of ill attitude and
selfishness in ourselves. No, indeed. This Fire IS unquenchable, and it shall burn
with ever increasing force, but it will burn up the chaff only. Each one must determine
whether he shall be wheat or chaff. The wheat has no need to fear the unquenchable
Fire. It is an Unquenchable Fire and
it has faced successfully every effort to put it out, but are we to wait in
order to prove by our lethargies that it is an unquenchable Fire? Are we to let
that wave roll over us and see if the Fire can be extinguished? That is no
good. There is a crying need in all parts of our land—and right here—for that
response which will allow that unquenchable Fire to burn as never before, that
the essential changes may be wrought and that, letting change come and allowing
that Fire to burn, we may be in position to render service to others.
Let the Fire burn. It is
an unquenchable Fire, and being so, how foolish it is for human beings to
struggle against it. What a despicable thing it is for human beings to try to
put that Fire out in their own hearts and lives. It is an unquenchable Fire,
and yet so much time and energy is used trying to put it out in heart and mind.
All kinds of excuses and ideas develop to salve the conscience. Time? Oh, we do
not have time. Or some other excuse. There are multitudes of them—human beings
drifting, wallowing in a state of confusion within themselves, trying to put
out an unquenchable Fire. If it is put out in the human being, or if it seems
to be put out, then that human being, that human form, is dead. There is
nothing left.
How foolish to try to
extinguish the unquenchable Fire! How wise it is, on the other hand, to devote
ourselves to pure devotion and allow that unquenchable Fire to have full sway
in our lives. How wise it is to give ourselves in heart and mind, body and soul,
to the purposes of the unquenchable Fire of God’s Love, allowing the
Patterns of His Truth to bring beauty and symmetry into all the forms of life
for which we are responsible.
The Fire of God's Love is
an unquenchable Fire. So, in that Word which was used to introduce our Master's
Ministry on earth, we find great cause for rejoicing, great cause for
thanksgiving—the unquenchable Fire. But it is not enough merely to believe it
is unquenchable. If we do not appreciate our responsibilities and privileges,
if we do not truly thank God, for the opportunity we have of gathering in peace
to consider the Word of God, those who drift and say, "It cannot happen
here," will find that miseries are increased because, like the legend
about Nero, they fiddled while Rome burned. Unless we are truly thankful to God
for these privileges, we will not do that which is necessary to maintain them,
and they will be lost.
If we salve our conscience
by attitudes of condemnation toward those who are in places of official responsibility,
the battle will be lost. No American has any right to complain about confusion
in Washington. If all Americans will let the Fire burn, the darkness will be
dispelled, the direction in which we should go will be clearly revealed, and it
is an unquenchable Fire which, if allowed to work in our lives, will remove any
official who refuses to walk in that revealed Path, or make it possible for him
to walk therein effectively if that is his desire. Condemning the officials is
such a ridiculous thing, so childish, so miserably contemptible. It is not the
officials who need condemnation; it is the American people who are not awake,
and if we do our part and let the change come and the Fire burn, the officials
will move in the right direction, and if they do not, some other official will
appear. We do not have to condemn them, and who are we to say, "They do
not want to move in the right direction?"
To my mind there is not a
place in officialdom in all the world that is more difficult to fill than that
which our President at the present time is called upon to fill. There are many
critics who are ready to condemn our President, to say ill things about him.
Could they do any better placed in such a position? I doubt it. I have not
heard one single critic of our President about whom I felt, "I wish he
were in the presidential chair." Not one! It is not a matter of finding
fault with our President or our Secretary of State, or any other. It is a
matter of letting this unquenchable Fire have meaning in our lives, so that
they will not be faced with an impossible task. If they fail it will not go
down in the records of God as their fault, but the fault of those who should have
been supporting, through whom the Fire should have been burning to dispel the darkness
and light the Way and give support so that the Power of God could have meaning.
So, changes come, changes
will come, and those changes will be shaped by the attitudes of the people. If
the change is for the worse, then we will have to admit it is what we asked
for, by our attitudes, by our own failures; but if we let God work these
changes through that unquenchable Fire the changes will not be for the worse.
We will be moving onward and upward toward Victory.
In this season we, as a
Nation, have a glorious opportunity of letting the unquenchable Fire so work in
and through us that we may partake of the Spirit of the Resurrection and allow
changes to come which will dispel darkness in the world and open the Way toward
the true realization of peace, not a peace that is merely a cessation of armed
conflict but a peace that is the Gift of God's Love dwelling in the hearts and
lives of men and women everywhere. Changes are coming. In what direction will
those changes appear? In what form? It depends on us. It depends upon all of us,
and now is the time to stop trying to extinguish the unquenchable Fire in our
own hearts, but, rather, to nurture it, to give heed to it, and let that Fire
burn; for it is that Fire shining, burning, in you that allows you to comply
with the injunction: "Let your Light so shine."
If that unquenchable Fire
is not aflame in you, you cannot let the Light shine, no matter how hard you
may try. Trying to let the Light shine is a futile thing. Until that Fire is
unquenchable in your heart and it burns in your words and deeds, you cannot let
the Light shine; but once you let the Fire have full sway, your Light shines.
And what happens? Others see your good works, the life you live, and glorify
your Father which is in Heaven.
As we have shared this
hour together, resting in that unquenchable Fire, let us remember that Peace is
the Gift of God’s Love. Without that unquenchable Fire there is no Peace. Peace
be unto you and God Bless you.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
