There is a feeling that comes over you when you
sense that time is running out. Not in a fearful way, though fear can certainly
be part of it. It is more like an urgency. A pulling. A deep internal knowing
that what you do with the moments in front of you matters more than you have
been treating it.
We are living in that kind of hour.
If you have been paying attention to the world
around you, something has shifted. The pace of things has changed. The moral
landscape looks different than it did even a decade ago. Things that were once
unthinkable are now celebrated. Things that were once solid are being shaken.
And for the believer who is reading their Bible with honest eyes, none of this
is a surprise.
Jesus told us in Matthew 24 that in the last days
there would be wars and rumors of wars, that nation would rise against nation,
that lawlessness would increase and the love of many would grow cold. He was
not painting a picture of doom to frighten His followers. He was giving them a
map so they would not be caught off guard when the landscape started looking
unfamiliar.
Does any of that sound familiar to you right
now?
The question is not whether we are living in
serious times. The question is what we are going to do about it.
The enduring fire is not the fire of destruction.
It is the fire of the Holy Spirit, the same fire that fell in Acts chapter 2 on
a group of ordinary people who had been told to wait. They did not know exactly
what they were waiting for. They only knew that Jesus had promised something
and they trusted Him enough to stay in the room until it arrived. When the fire
came, it changed everything. Timid people became bold. Confused people became
clear. People who had been hiding behind locked doors walked out into the
streets and turned a city upside down.
That fire has never gone out.
Hebrews 12:29 reminds us that our God is a
consuming fire. He is not a God who burns brightly for a season and then fades.
He does not grow tired. He does not lose interest. He does not look at the
state of the world and decide the situation is too far gone. Daniel 4:35 tells
us that He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth, and no one can hold back His hand or say to Him what
are you doing.
In the last hour, that is not a threatening truth.
That is a comforting one.
Because if God is still sovereign in this hour, and
He is, then the enduring fire of His Spirit is still available to every
believer who is willing to stay close to the source. The problem is not that
the fire has gone out. The problem is that too many of us have drifted far
enough from it that we no longer feel its heat.
Revelation 3:15 and 16 contains one of the most
sobering things Jesus ever said to a church. He told the church at Laodicea
that He knew their works, that they were neither cold nor hot, and that because
they were lukewarm He would spit them out of His mouth. That is startling
language from a Saviour who is known for His
gentleness. But lukewarm faith in the last hour is not just an inconvenience.
It is a danger. Not only to the person carrying it but to everyone around them
who needs to see what a fully alive faith looks like.
What does it mean to carry an enduring fire
in this hour?
It means refusing to let the noise of the world
drown out the voice of God. It means staying in the word when the word feels
difficult. It means praying when prayer feels like it is going nowhere because
you know that your feelings about prayer and the actual power of prayer are two
completely different things. It means standing for truth in a culture that has
decided truth is negotiable. It means loving others
fiercely even when they are hard to love because that is what the fire does. It
does not just burn away what is wrong. It also produces a warmth that draws
people in.
2 Timothy 1:6 records Paul urging Timothy to fan
into flame the gift of God that was in him. The word he uses suggests something
that has not gone out but needs attention. A fire that is still there but has
been neglected. Paul was not writing to someone who had walked away from God.
He was writing to a young minister who was facing pressure and difficulty and
needed to be reminded that the fire inside him was real and worth protecting.
Maybe that is the word for someone reading this
today. The fire is still there. It has not gone out. But it needs you to tend
to it. It needs you to stop letting the busyness and the discouragement and the
weight of living in a complicated world keep you from the practices that keep
it burning. Worship. Prayer. Community. The word of God. These are not
religious boxes to check. They are the fuel that keeps the fire alive.
The last hour is not the hour to go quiet. It is
not the hour to shrink back or blend in or decide that one person's fire cannot
make a difference in a world this large. History is full of moments where one
person who refused to let the fire go out changed the direction of everything
around them.
Isaiah 60:1 says arise, shine, for your light has
come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. That is not a suggestion.
That is a command spoken to people living in darkness, people surrounded by a
world that had lost its way. God was not asking them to wait for better
conditions. He was telling them to rise in the middle of the difficult ones.
Rise in this hour. Carry the fire. Let it
endure in you even when enduring feels costly.
To God be all the glory for a fire that has never
gone out, for a Spirit that has never stopped moving, and for a love that burns
toward His people even in the last and most difficult hours of history.
The world needs people who are still burning.
Be one of them.
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