Why the Flame Goes Out

I've known men in ministry who at one time were men on fire for God, but somewhere along the way the flame went out. Whether it was from disappointment of an unfulfilled dream or discouragement in ministry, whatever the reason, the flame began to flicker down until it became a wisp and then it was blown out. A man like that, in that condition, is no use to anyone.

He becomes a Christian worker who does for God only because he has an obligation to do so. There is no joy in his service to the Lord. There is a bitter taste in his mouth for feeling he was duped to begin with by doing what he did.

He won't go any further in his service to God, and he won't go any deeper in his relationship with God. It's like a bad marriage of convenience where both partners sleep with their backs turned against the other. There are some pastors in this condition.

Some wicked deacon roughed them up and hindered the work of the ministry and hurt their feelings. Or perhaps some disappointment was too much for them and whatever fire they had for God dwindled down to a wisp of smoke. Or perhaps they are a Christian who became disenchanted by the institutional church or dissatisfied by a preacher-in-general.

But whatever the reason is for the flame going out in their walk with God, they will never be satisfied if they remain where they are and continue in that cold state. There is a dire warning found in Hebrews chapter 3, beginning in verse 7. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation, in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years, wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart, and they have not known my ways. So I swear in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest.

Let me pause here, friends, because there is a break in the text in verse 12, as the writer of Hebrews issues a dire warning to all his readers. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

I will stop there. The Israelites in the wilderness were a great disappointment to God. He had delivered them from the bondage of Egypt, worked wonders on their behalf at the Red Sea, provided manna from heaven to satisfy their hunger, and even made water flow from a rock to quench their thirst.

But all they did was continually gripe and complain, and voice their dissatisfaction. They hardened their hearts against their God, and against their appointed leader Moses, and they provoked Almighty God by their grievous sins. It was a time of provocation, our text says.

I believe you don't have to be in the desert to have wilderness of soul. I believe bitterness toward another is a poisonous root that chokes out all fruit. I believe a follower of God can so harden their heart that they become good for nothing.

They block God's flow of blessing to their life and family. They are no longer sensitive to the leadings of the Holy Spirit, and whatever fruit they manage to produce comes only from the flesh, and it doesn't last. A person with a hardened heart is like a lead balloon that cannot rise one inch from the ground.

There it sits, in its own misery of self-pity, and putrefies all it comes in contact with. Stagnant water is filthy. When the flame goes out, it stays out until that person has a fresh encounter with God, and if they're honest with themselves, they know their problem exists because of unbelief.

But there, in that mountaintop experience, the flame is rekindled and stoked each day with a new awareness of God and a burning love for His Son, Jesus Christ. We must do all we can to fan the embers on the altar of our heart and our love toward God and to one another. But if there is no hot pursuit of God, there will be stagnation and a hardening of the heart.

Only one is only left wondering what might have been if God was allowed to have His way. There is a poem that's always been a warning to me to never let the flame go out and to stay on track for God's plan for me. Let me end my message, friends, by reading it to you now.

When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ and He shows His plan for me, the plan of my life, as it might have been, had He had His way and I see how I blocked Him here and checked Him there and I would not yield my will, would there be grief in my Savior's eyes, grief though He loves me still? Would He have me rich and I stand there poor, stripped of all but His grace, while memory runs like a haunted thing down the paths I cannot retrace? Lord of the years that are left of me, I give them to Thy hand. Take me and break me and mold me to the pattern that Thou hast planned.