October 28, 2013 – 2 Chronicles 7 - 8

When God comes down as fire to consume, it always makes me wonder.  When you think of fire, you are more likely to think of Hell than Heaven.  Yet, God uses fire a lot.  Guides Israel in the dessert, cuts off Pharaoh at the Red Sea, burning up offering and sometimes people, and tongues of fire on Pentecost.  Fire is described as purifying like gold being put in the fire as well.  Yet, fire equals pain and suffering and Christ talks about burning in Gahanna. It is just something that is used as a visual for both sides, but I think more readily related to Hell and I just wonder why.  Is it because of our picture of what Hell is, with fire and the little red devil and Heaven as cloudy and white.  If you go through Dante, Hell isn’t all fire and burning.  But, maybe we can’t imagine any worse type of suffering than being burned.  It is a horrible thought and I would imagine one of the worst ways to die.  When we want to envision Hell, we have to go as far as we can and for many, being burned with an eternal fire is about as bad as we can imagine.  We should always remember though, that God uses fire as well, to protect, to consume, and to purify.