Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - God of... Fire? | The Writings | Psalm 97

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Why does the Bible use the imagery of fire to describe God? Is the fire of God intended to harm us? Or protect us? In today's episode, Tanya shares how Psalm 97 points us to the fire of God's love, which preserves those who love Him and hate evil. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 97

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. In the United States, before 1995, the National Forest Service had a reactive approach to wildfires. If there was a wildfire, their protocol was to put it out. We had fire towers, we had people manning them through all seasons to be on the lookout for fires. But on August 5th, 1949, there was a fire in the man-gulch in Montana. A fire spotter noticed the fire from a watch station and notified the department who sent out a group of 15 fire jumpers to get it under control.

The team leader was Wagner Dodge, and he noticed the fire was burning in a way that was going to be easy to control as long as they kept the river at their backs. So they split off for a few minutes so that they could fight it separately. And by the time they got back together, Wagner Dodge noticed that something had happened, the fire had jumped. the fire had jumped a valley and it was now coming for them much faster than he originally thought. He realized at one point that they had about 30 seconds before the fire was going to reach them. And the crew was trained to run away from the fire, which would have been up mountain. And they were also trained to always carry all of their tools with them. Now Wagner Dodge knew that neither of those were going to work.

fire travels faster up mountain than down and man travels slower up mountain than down, especially when you're encumbered by all of your fire tools. So he wanted them to go against their training. He wanted them not only to drop their tools, but to do something that he was about to do and something that had never been done before, which was to light a smaller fire and then take cover in it while the big fire went over the top. Well, we don't know all that happens. there was a lot of smoke, a lot of chaos, but most of the men ran, and they were consumed by the fire.

In fact, 13 men died. They were found by their tools kind of scattered in about a hundred-foot radius around the mountain. But three men survived. Dodge and two others who went against all training to light their own fire and lie down in the burning shaft while the big fire went over the top of them survived. So we learned a lot about fire from Man Gulch. We learned that controlled fires are important to remove the underbrush that creates disasters later. We also learned that it's better to make a fire cover than outrun a fire in situations like this. These lessons aren't so different than the metaphor that we read about in Psalm 97 and the all-consuming fire of the Lord. It removes the shaft that threatens to burn up our lives. And we also have the promise of God's grace that gives us cover in his all-consuming

fire. So the Psalm, Psalm 97, now if you've been listening for a while, you know that these are poems, they've been crafted and then intentionally placed together so that as God's people, we can read them, we can memorize them, and we can come in to worship. It's a way for us to immerse ourselves into God's presence. So think of it like entering a temple to worship. The book of Psalms is like a virtual temple that you and I can enter to meet with and worship God. So Psalm 97 uses poetic language of a fire to describe the bigger story of our life in God's kingdom. We can't see this big story all the time, like how we can't see the forest for the trees or the fire for the smoke. So we read this Psalm to remind us where we are in God's big story. Under God's reign, Psalm 97 says all the earth

will rejoice. To do that, the Lord is surrounded by clouds and described as a consuming fire. It says that he will burn up his adversaries all around. It says that his lightning lights up the world and when the earth sees it, it will tremble. It says that in this fire, the mountains melt like wax before the Lord. This fire metaphor helps us understand the character, the purpose, the magnitude of our true king. He is the only one. He is the only one. who is able to create and sustain life. This isn't like any other fire. The whole earth is consumed by it.

Nothing can escape it. The mountains are inside its path and melt like wax. The psalmas is using what words we have in our human language to describe the magnitude and holiness of our Lord. He must burn up everything that is not holy in our lives. Everything in his creation that is twisted and distorted must be, burnt up by the holy fire of God. So how should the believer respond to this? How does this help us understand and relate to and love our God? Should we be scared? Should we be comforted? Should we be

amazed at his beauty? Psalm 97 talks about the holy fire and in it God's righteousness will be declared. All impurities will be burned away and all adversaries will be consumed. Like Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 24, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. We first of all must remember that this is a God who loves us so much. It is a jealous love that God has for us, that he doesn't want anything in our lives to be kept from him. He doesn't want us to see anything in our lives as better than him. He wants us to see it for what it truly is. The fire of God's love is so consuming because it must reveal and remove what twist and distorts the creation that he loves so much. So verse 10 tells us how to respond to the God who loves us this much.

It says, oh, you who love the Lord, hate evil. He preserves the lives of his saints. He delivers them from the hand of the wicked. So we who love the Lord are instructed to hate evil. we're supposed to hate those things in our lives that threaten to consume us as much as he does. But if someone asked me, if I love the Lord and hate evil, I would say yes, but it would also be the kind of question that keeps me pondering if I'm really being honest. I love God, but I also love a lot of things. I love things that make me feel good. I love things that

keep me from needing God and depending on God? I love things that keep me from wanting God. I love things that keep me from desiring a relationship with Him. What are things that you love that might be keeping you from your most important relationship with the one true God? Do you love a reputation that's more about how you are than who God is? Do you love your time so much you hoard it away instead of being around others? Do you love a relationship that isn't good for you? Do you love your comfort so that you're hesitant to helping people who need you? The warning to all of us who love the Lord is that one day all of those things we love are are going to be revealed for what they really are, and they're going to be burned away

like the shaft in a wildfire. So how do we respond to that now? We're to love the Lord and hate the things in our lives that are upside down. We're to make sure that we're to make sure that we're we don't let ourselves be consumed by the lies they whisper to us, if you have me, your life will be a success. So what we can do is love the Lord our God with all our hearts and ask him to help us love him more. The warning to all of us who love the Lord is to hate the things in our lives that are upside down. So we aren't consumed by the lies they whisper to us. If you have me, your life will be a success. God says, only if you have me will your life have eternal meaning.

He preserves his saints. Now that's a word that refers to his holy people, those people that he has transformed by his grace. When that wildfire comes, we are covered by his grace. He preserves you, the one not created and puffed up by idols, but you, the one that he created, the one that he rescued, the one that he rescued, the one that he, He transforms. That's who he loves.

That's who he preserves. That's who he delivers. For those who love God and hate evil, the fire metaphor is a beautiful promise. King Jesus will return to make everything right. You're covered by his grace while he restores his creation. So in the meantime, how can we love God and hate evil? Well, you can love the light that God brings into your life.

You can pursue light. You can love the forgiveness that God offers. You can accept His forgiveness. You can love the promise of holiness. You can pursue holiness. And you can love him. You can love the peace he brings. And you can find your peace in him.