Where's the fire?

Jesus set the world aflame. Where's that fire today?

David VanDenburgh is the senior pastor of the Campus Hill Church of Seventh-day Adventists, Loma Linda, California.

Jesus said,."I came to cast fire upon the earth" (Luke 12:49, RSV). And He did. Every time He healed, every time He taught, every time He cast out a demon, He cast fire upon the earth. He kindled fires in villages and in hearts. It was dangerous to meet Jesus; He was incendiary.

The work of casting fire is intimately bound up with the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist said that Jesus would baptize "with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Matt. 3:11, RSV). This promise was literally fulfilled at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples: "And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:3, 4, RSV).

When the disciples received the Holy Spirit, the fire that Jesus had come to cast upon the earth was ignited. The book of Acts seems to portray the entire New Testament church ablaze, each Christian witnessing to the saving lordship of Christ, the church growing by leaps and bounds, signs and wonders everywhere, the holy fire spreading from person to person. "The Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved" (verse 47, NKJV), and the world was turned upside down.

And now a question: Where's the fire ? Jesus was afire; the apostles were ablaze at Pentecost; the early church burned brightly. Where is the fire today?

It seems to me that the church of Jesus Christ needs a renewal. Few congregations, big or small, in any denomination, could easily substantiate a claim to be on fire. In the present climate, glowing coals pass for bonfires, wisps of smoke for conflagrations. And when we listen to God we hear Him weeping—weeping that the fire kindled by His blood has been smothered by indifference.

"I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked" (Rev. 3:15-17, RSV).

Surely those of us who are Seventh-day Adventists should not be surprised by a call for revival. A hundred years ago Ellen White wrote: "A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. To seek this should be our first work." 1

The church: obstacle to faith?

Sad to say, I can't see that we have heeded the advice; we haven't made the seeking of revival our first work. Evangelism might be our first work, or institutional maintenance perhaps, but not the pursuit of revival. It shows. We are many things, but we are not a "spiritual" people. We are not "natural" people either—unconverted, unregenerate. The designation that seems to fit best is "carnal." Paul says carnal people need milk rather than solid food, for they are immature. They are not "natural," yet they live like ordinary people (1 Cor. 2:14-3:4).

I believe that the church, instead of being the instrument of salvation God intended it to be, has become the greatest obstacle to faith. Non-Christians are heard to say (in different ways), "Jesus, yes; the church, no." G. K. Chesterton, on being told that Christianity doesn't work, disagreed. He said, "It hasn't yet been tried." A Hindu was heard to say, "I would become a Christian if I could see one." Instead of "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" we ought to sing:

Like a mighty tortoise moves the church of God.

Brothers, we are treading

where we've always trod.

We are all divided, many bodies we.

Very strong on doctrine, weak in charity.

We do well at feeding people husks—the husks of theology and morality—but we are not very good at giving them food for their souls. Preaching has reached a low estate. We are no longer a people of the Book. Real prayer is almost unknown among us. The joy of the Lord is seldom to be found.

We have confused religiosity with spirituality, not realizing that religiosity is but a poor, superficial, pale, and round-shouldered parody of spirituality.

"Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?" (Gal. 3:3, RSV). In Paul's day, the question was whether the Galatians, rather than continuing to depend on Christ alone for salvation, would try to add their accomplishments in the vain hope that by doing so they could make their salvation more secure. It was a move from God-centeredness to man-centeredness.

In our day, a new danger grows with the old one—the temptation to substitute dependence on human effort and skill for dependence on the Holy Spirit, to leave our faith that the church is Christ's and to look to human efforts to run it. No one who reads about the beginnings of either the New Testament church or the Seventh-day Adventist Church will doubt that they began with the Spirit. Shall we end with the flesh?

We must remember that the Holy Spirit doesn't indwell plans, programs, projects, or promotions; He indwells people. He doesn't anoint machinery, but people.

Carl Bates once said, "If the Holy Spirit were suddenly withdrawn from the earth, 90 percent of what the church does would go right on." I am afraid he is right. I am afraid that we are no longer a spiritual people. We would rather plan than pray. We would rather work than wait on the Lord. We would rather be managers than ministers. We view the church as a business more than as a fellowship. We see the pastor more as a chief executive officer than as a shepherd. (Why is it that pastors become administrators, but administrators seldom become pastors?) We think of the organization as a hierarchy of authority rather than as a community of fellow servants all of whom are brothers and sisters.

Once our institutions were tools to accomplish our mission in the world, but now the maintaining of our institutions is our mission in the world. They have be come the tail that wags the dog. To maintain our institutions we are bleeding our local congregations dry, and we have difficulty conceiving of any ministry apart from institutions.

There is very little trust among us. We are afraid to speak our minds. Because we don't trust each other, we construct elaborate systems of checks and balances to make sure that no one can run away with the church. Many of us strongly suspect that the church operates on the "good ole boy" system. When the church gathers to do business, Machiavellian techniques are used to ensure the previously determined outcome. Leadership is not listening to the people it is supposed to serve. Servanthood has mutated into autocracy. We know very little about "strength in weakness" and "death to self."

I'm afraid that having begun with the Spirit we are ending with the flesh.

What can we do?

What can we do ? We can repent, and we can pray. Ellen White said: "Our heavenly Father is more willing to give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, than are earthly parents to give good gifts to- their children. But it is our work, by confession, humiliation, repentance, and earnest prayer, to fulfill the conditions upon which God has promised to grant us His blessing. A revival need be expected only in answer to prayer." 2

We spend so much time trying to be strong and in control that we can't fathom His strength being "made perfect in weakness." We are so busy fighting for ourselves, our views, our plans—so busy proving that we know what is right for the church—that we can't value brokenness. Confession and repentance don't sound like much fun to us. Humiliation is the last thing we want. Yet we can't experience revival without them.

We must be determined above all else that we shall be spiritual leaders. We must make space for God in our lives, as He has made space for us in His covenant family. We must quiet ourselves before Him and listen for His still, small voice. We must give first place on our agendas to the practice of the spiritual disciplines that for 20 centuries were the backbone of church leadership.

We must remind ourselves—frequently—that this is Christ's church and that He doesn't need us. We must remind ourselves that He has not called us to be successful but to be faithful. We must remember that being is more important than doing.

If the ministry can't or won't model such convictions, where can the fire be rekindled? Let us pray for one another, to be spiritual people. Let us pray that the fire that Jesus cast upon the earth might bum again—within us.

1 Selected Messages (Washington, D.C.: Review
and Herald Pub. Assn., 1958), book 1, p. 121.

2 Ibid.


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David VanDenburgh is the senior pastor of the Campus Hill Church of Seventh-day Adventists, Loma Linda, California.

March 1991

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