"WHERE NO WOOD IS.. . "

E.C.Burr

Proverbs 26: 20 (first part)

As we would expect with proverbs - proverbs generally, not just the book of Proverbs - the meaning is fairly clear on the face of the text. I can remember when I was at school (children do not seem to be educated in quite the same way nowadays) we used to be given exercises to explain the meaning of proverbs: Explain what this means - 'A stitch in time saves nine' and things like that. We more or less made something out of it, but the significance of a proverb is that on the whole the meaning is plain on the face of it. There is a kind of wisdom condensed into a sentence or so of which the meaning is clear, and in that way the meaning would not require much to be said about it. I would like this evening to say one or two sentences in passing about the meaning of this scripture and then to go on, as the Spirit may help, in applying the scripture. It says "Where no wood is, the fire goeth out". We all know as a matter of practical experience that if you have a fire and want to keep it going you have to keep feeding it with things that will continue to burn. Of course, in the immediate setting of the scripture the sentence has its application on the face of it and you only need to read the rest of the verse to see what its application is; and in its direct meaning the verse itself would have something of worth to say to us. There are many matters persistent or even past, to our knowledge, as to which this proverb itself might be very good advice. There are fires which could be allowed to go out, fires which are kept burning by additional wood continually being put on them. I should not catalogue them here, but there are fires which are kept going by the constant addition of wood. More likely the constant addition nowadays is paper, especially reproduced paper, and it keeps fires going that should really be allowed to go out or should perhaps be allowed to burn in the place where they belong. The tendency in which we all indulge, I venture to say, to add fuel to these fires alas! to keep them going, may not be the best occupation for us. It may not be the most advantageous occupation for us, it may not most further the Lord's interests. I have sometimes felt, even when there are exercises rightly carried among the brethren, that in some ways the saints have not learned to live with a world which has become so much smaller as a result of the improvement in communications. Because - let me go back in history there was at one time quite a protracted and serious exercise in Newcastle but this was not the constant occupation of brethren in meetings in London and such other places. Even Newcastle was so far away from London that we did not feel that we were participants, as it were, in that meeting and we did not therefore bring wood to put on that fire. But the world has become smaller and communications have made it smaller. The aeroplane has made New York as close to London by air as Aberdeen is by train. The world becoming smaller has given us perhaps more involvement than is according to principle in matters which are not in the area of what I might speak of as our own fire. Much wood is brought in to many matters and it would be well if we for our part, while maintaining interests substantially in exercises which are universal, did not ourselves seek to feed such things. I think that this would help us.

One consequence of the feeding of fires is that, instead of being soberly and righteously exercised about a matter, we can easily become obsessive in relation to it, and once there is obsession we have certainly reached the point where the fire should be allowed to die down. I do not say this as correcting anybody; I say these things to myself. I am myself as interested in things that proceed among the saints as I suppose any brother is, but where no wood is the fire goes out. The Lord allows fires to arise in their own place. The same thing can happen in personal relationships; they are interfered with or are in a degree marred. If no more wood was brought to the spoiled relationship the fire would go out and relationships could be resumed, not out of the ashes but in normality, because things were not still being fed. There are personal histories which are continually fed with wood from the past - 'I remember how I was treated and I remember they did this to me and that to me'; and more wood is brought and the fire is kept alive, and unhappiness is bred even in persons themselves, when the fire might be allowed to go out, and they might begin, I might almost say, to live again. Some men even get their wives to bring the wood - 'I was treated like this, was I not?' and 'Do you remember what they did to me?', and here comes the wife with another ton of wood and the fire is kept going again. Sisters, please do not do it. Let us learn to let fires go out, let us learn not to feed them, let us learn to carry exercises with the Lord. He maintains things according to what they ought to be, according to the temperature at which they should be. Let us learn not to be continually bringing wood either for self justification or for the feeding of personal matters. Let us not even continue to bring wood that nourishes assembly difficulties. The Lord is amply able to resolve all these matters Himself.

But I do not wish to speak about the interpretation of this scripture, I have said enough of that. If I had just read the verse I could have sat down, if that was all I had to say, but I would like to give the verse an application, because there is a fire that I do not want to go out. There has been a fire kindled on the earth as the Lord Himself said: "I have come to cast a fire on the earth", Luke 12: 49. And while He refers in that context to division which would come in as the result of His own ministry on the earth, and the product of it working to divide one person from another, yet there was a fire He had kindled on earth which still burned when He was in resurrection. "Was not our heart burning in us as he spoke to us on the way, and as he opened the scriptures to us?”, Luke 24: 32. That is the fire that I would like to keep burning and I trust that you would like to keep that fire burning. If you do not bring wood to that fire, then that fire will go out, and if that fire goes out, then the recovery will go out and there will be great loss to the Lord, there will be great loss to believers, there will be great loss to yourself. There is a fire to which we need wood brought constantly. Let us be committed to it. One has had the opportunity, indeed the privilege, of speaking to some of the beloved young people of whom I see so many in the gallery, and I have found in individuals among them that this fire is there. One of the greatest joys as we grow older is to find young people who are responsive to discussions about Christ and about the meetings and about the truth. Beloved, it is a privilege to meet and speak with young people about that. I would like to urge them not to let the fire go out. Go on bringing wood to that fire. The day you stop bringing wood to that fire is the day Christianity will begin to die down in you and one day you will be looking back perhaps on a husk of your better days and you will wish that you had kept things burning which were like the day of the gladness of your heart, when you went after Christ in a land not sown. I do encourage you, beloved young brethren, to foster your impressions of Christ and to grow according to them. There is a fire which must not be put out and that fire needs wood and that wood is Christ. One thing in Scripture that is almost a consistent type of Christ is wood. You do not find in men consistent types of Christ, because men break down. There is a man like Daniel as to whom no particular fault is recorded in the scripture. There is a man like Joseph as to whom relatively little fault is recorded in scripture. There are other men like David of whom you have to say, in this he typifies Christ, in that he typifies the believer and in that he is an awful warning. This is characteristic of men because there is only one Man perfect and that is Christ Himself and He is the wood that is to keep this fire burning. What I would like to do is to encourage the saints to be nourishing themselves with Christ in order to keep themselves alert, alive, vigorous and virile for Christ. Let that fire not go out. If you need it, I should come back to the scripture "Go up to the mountain and bring wood" (Hag 1: 8) in order that this fire may not go out. Go and gather something fresh about Christ in order that the fire that you already have in you may be something here which would turn you from a believer partly going on in the testimony, to one whom that fire is making a light in the world (see Phil 2: 15).

So I would just like to touch on one or two occasions in Scripture in order to recall for us some impressions about wood on which we can be nourished and by which we can keep the fire burning. The first substantial reference to wood in Scripture, apart from the trees in chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis, is "Make thyself an ark of gopher wood", Gen 6: 13. It is interesting that God commanded Noah to make an ark of gopher wood. It was a wood that was buoyant, no doubt a wood that was impermeable, a wood that would see the ark through the time of judgment. But beloved, I am not now concerned for you to take wood and build something for your preservation through judgment. What I am concerned about is that you should have that impression of Christ as having seen you through the judgment that will kindle and maintain a fire in you that you do not wish to go out. Remember that one of the English martyrs when put to the stake said, We have lit such a fire in England today as shall not go out. Are all the brethren today concerned that there shall be such a fire that will not go out? The first thing you need is to bring continually the wood of Christ as the means of salvation the means of bringing you through the judgment, the means of saving you when God's judgment is coming upon the world on account of sin. What does God do? He tells Noah to bring wood: in a certain application of it, to take Christ and find salvation in Him. I know it can also be applied in relation to Christ as a means of bringing you through the world apart from judgment. Where God's judgment is all around you, you have in Christ what makes you secure. I do not at this time refer to Christ's death and His being buried and being raised on account of our sins, I refer to Christ as the means of salvation. One thing needed to keep this fire burning is that you are constantly appropriating Christ as the means of salvation from the world which is about to come under the judgment of God. Of course, there is another aspect of the escape from the judgment of God in the passover lamb, but God provided in Christ, in which is typified in the substantial reference to wood, a means of salvation. Beloved, feed on Him, gather gopher wood.

You will not find it in the Highlands or anywhere like that; you find it spiritually. I do not know where you would find gopher trees today but I know where you can find Christ and that is what you need. You need Christ as the means of salvation and you need continually to be bringing this kind of wood in order that your attachment to and affection for Christ may not go out. The fire that you have, in the sense that in Christ you have salvation from the world and its whole system, will go out unless you are constantly nourishing yourself on Christ as the means of that salvation. As soon as Noah came out of that ark he must have had wood available because he made a fire and a burnt-offering, but he had come through in the sense that in Christ there was the means of salvation when God's judgment was about to come on the world. Go on and gather that wood. You will not have to go far for it. Nobody has to go far for it. It says in Deuteronomy, "it is not too wonderful for thee, neither is it far off", chap 30: 11. You do not have to go up to heaven for it, you do not have to go over the sea for it; "The word is near thee", Paul says in Romans 10, "the word of faith which we preach" (v 8). Then he goes on to say, "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved". There is wood to keep a fire burning in you in order that you might be saved. Well, beloved, may we all be saved in that sense - not only saved for eternity: I trust everybody here knows what eternal salvation is through the blood of Christ - but let us learn salvation in Christ from the present order of things. Let us learn to confess the name of the Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead. Then we will be saved and we shall know what the ark made of gopher wood is. Let us go to Romans 10 and continually collect that wood, that there is a means of salvation from the world in the present day. There is an old chorus of which the first two lines say, 'Romans 10 and 9 Is a favourite verse of mine'. Well, I trust it is to everybody: "thou shalt be saved".

Now a following substantial reference to wood is in Genesis 22. There we have a solemn account of wood. Abraham as under the word of God was told to take his son and offer him up on the mount that God would show him. It says "he clave the wood for the burnt-offering" (v 3). I suppose we would get some sense there of the Father's feelings as He contemplated Christ going into death, not on account of sins but in view of some fragrance for God coming out of the obedience of the Christ. Then it says that he laid the wood on his son. Think of Isaac bearing the wood! After a moment Isaac says "My father! ... Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the sheep for a burntoffering?" But the wood was there. It says, "God will provide himself with the sheep for a burnt-offering", but the fire and the wood were there. What Paul says in the beginning of Ephesians 5 bears on us in regard to this, that we are to "walk in love, even as the Christ loved us, and delivered himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour", Let us gather wood like that. Let us learn to bear it, to be those who can carry wood in that sense, wood that is going to enter into our appreciation of the way Christ was offered spotless to God. I would not like that fire to go out. It would hardly be worth being among the brethren if the appreciation of the fragrance of the sacrifice to God of Christ was ever lost among them. Let us keep that fragrance up among the saints. Whether you are young or old, keep it up, the fragrance of what Christ was to God in that perfect obedience in which He went into death, as typically he said, "Behold the fire and the wood"; as if there were the means there immediately by which a sacrifice was to be accomplished. "Where is the sheep?" - but the fire and the wood were there. In our spirits we can enter into the gathering of the wood.

If we came to the wood-offering in the day of Nehemiah, it was with a view to the burnt-offering. Persons took lots to bring the burnt-offering to the Levites and into the house of God in order that the burnt-offering might be sustained. Let us learn what the death of Jesus was in its fragrance to God; the blessedness of what God was to Jesus and what He was to God, and even more in His offering Himself spotless to God. Have you gathered wood like that? Have you brought just something of your own, which as you brought it has brought out for you some fresh element of the sweet-smelling savour of what Christ's death was for God? Noah had to do that; he would have to gather wood in order to offer an offering of a sweet-smelling savour immediately after the flood, and as he gathered it he would have in view what was going to be for God. Beloved, as you yourself gather impressions of Christ who has offered Himself spotless to God, you will be gathering what will keep the fire going that must not be allowed to die out. I say again, that it would hardly be worth being in fellowship if the fragrance of Christ to God in His death were lost in the sensibilities of the saints. Let us be sure it is kept up, let us be sure it is nourished. Whether young or old, let us be sure that we ourselves are constantly growing in the appreciation of what Jesus was to God, especially in His death, apart from the question of sin, His death in the character of the burnt-offering and in its fragrance. When did you last dwell on it? When did you last have any sense of carrying the wood in view of there being that kind of yield to God? You say, 'We had some touch of it at the Supper, a brother gave a word', or something like that, but beloved, you should have had it today as well, because the burnt-offering is in the morning and in the evening. It is continual and the fire is to be continually burning upon the altar. You must all the time be seeking some fresh impression of the fragrance to God of Christ in death, if this fire is not to go out. Who would wish to be here if there were nothing of that fragrance here? I venture to say, hardly anybody. The whole thing would disintegrate into what is formal and institutional. It is because the dying of Jesus is cherished that there is something here that makes it attractive.

As we go on we find another substantial reference to the wood in the building of the tabernacle. God says, Tell the people to bring gold and silver and copper and precious stones and goats' skins and badgers' skins and acacia wood. When God gives instructions about the building of the tabernacle He does not say, You have to do this with the gold and this with the copper. He says "And they shall make an ark of acacia wood", Exod 25: 10. God starts with the wood, with the humanity of Christ, as the centre of His system of things. If God will meet with you and speak with you on the mercy seat it is in relation to the humanity of Jesus. It is going to be covered with gold, but underneath the gold is acacia wood and someone has to bring the acacia wood. The temptations in the beginning of the gospels bring to light the acacia wood, what was incorruptible in the wilderness, and that is the humanity of Jesus. Learn to reflect on Jesus in the gospels. Begin with Matthew and go through. Begin with Mark because it looks short - it is not as short as it looks. Begin with Luke because Luke's platform is humanity. Begin with John because it is the easiest to understand. Thus you will gather up impressions about what the acacia wood was. Apprehend in your soul how Christ as Man is the centre of the divine system. God will see to it that it is covered in every part with gold, but there is the humanity of Jesus at the centre of God's system. Other wood was to be brought to be used in the boards and in the table, wood was to be used here and there, but God starts with the acacia wood for the ark. That wood has to be gathered, has to be brought, and unless wood is brought the fire of the appreciation of the humanity of Jesus will go out. If He was just thought to be some good man, some man in whom good was expressed in the midst of evil, it would be because He was not treasured as God manifest in flesh. In the perfection of His manhood there was the perfection of His Deity. There was the acacia wood but it was covered in every part with gold. Let us gather up from the gospels impressions of the humanity of Jesus, what He was to God but also what He was to man, that blessed humanity in which God delighted but in which He also increased in favour with men. As He went on day by day crowds gathered to Him and crowds went away but some stayed. Persons who were interested in the acacia wood stayed. They would, as far as they could, see that humanity through to the end. There came a moment when all forsook Him and fled. There was an earlier moment when everyone went to his own home and He went to the mount of Olives. In the end they all forsook Him and fled but the acacia wood went right through. Hebrews tells us that, in the temple, there is the ark of the covenant, covered round in every part with gold (see chap 9: 4). The humanity of Jesus has gone through to the new condition in which He now is as Man. He lives as Man for ever. It is an indispensable feature of Christianity that Christ is glorified and lives as Man. If anyone takes that away he has taken Christianity away. Let us feed on the fact that Christ lives as Man, on the blessedness of the Man that was here in humiliation and temptation and went through it all and manifested God's glory in it all. God has now glorified Him and made Him the centre of what speaks of the universe for God, the glory of that universal system in which God's glory is manifested in Christ. It is manifested in Christ as Man in the humanity that has gone through. Keep on bringing that wood. See where you can find some fresh impression of what the humanity of Jesus was when He was here. Go to the gospels, go to ministry that is available among us, go to the preaching, come to the meeting and you will find all the time that acacia wood is being brought, that more and more impressions of the humanity of Jesus are being worked with among the brethren in order that a fire may not go out. There is nothing keeps the fire burning in the soul like impressions of the humanity of Christ.

Well, beloved, I just suggest these thoughts to the brethren. Later scriptures could be referred to. As I have said, in the day of recovery under Nehemiah they cast lots as to who would bring the woodoffering for the sustaining of the burnt-offering. The blessedness of what was to be re-established in recovery depended really on the maintenance of the burnt-offering and this required that persons would commit themselves to the wood-offering; that is to say, the sustaining of the recovery depends on who can bring impressions about the reality of His condition here and what He is in the condition in which He is now. Unless wood is brought, that fire will go out. There was no fire, I think, when Nehemiah got back to Jerusalem. He found things in a very disorderly state. He found plenty of combustible material but not much of it was wood and he had to arrange that persons cast lots to bring the burnt-offering. I think the significance of the casting of lots in these recovery books is not so much that there were so many people that you had to find some way of choosing among them but rather that there were so few that some had to be designated by lot in order to undertake the task. But perhaps you would volunteer, perhaps you would like to be willing. "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power", Ps 110: 3. Every person that was willing-hearted brought things for the tabernacle. People that were ready and were prepared to bring these things brought them. In an earlier day, before the order of things that Nehemiah was going to serve in relation to was broken down, David says "I have prepared... gold for things of gold... and wood for things of wood", 1 Chron 29: 2. When David had the house in view he prepared wood for things of wood. He was determined that the fire should not go out. When he was at home, when he heard of the ark in Ephratah, a small spark was lit in his soul, just a spark, and David says, I am going to build for that, wood for things of wood. All the time David was concerned that that spark which had been struck in his soul was not going to go out and he went on gathering wood. All the time he prepared wood for things of wood. I suppose he prepared wood for different aspects of the temple, for building rather than for the offerings, but he was preparing wood for things of wood. He was determined that as far as he was concerned the spark that was lit in his soul when he was young was not going to go out. However young we are we can prepare wood for things of wood, and one of the things of wood is to keep the fire burning.

Now David did not prepare enough wood. That is quite clear if you go into the second book of Chronicles. You find straightaway that David had not prepared enough wood because Solomon sends away to Hiram and says, I want more wood and you are an expert in wood. He went to the man who knew how to fell timber in Lebanon and he had things brought out of Lebanon in order that not only the house might be constructed but for something else too. How do you think that that immense burnt-offering of Solomon's was sustained? There must have been wood enough to sustain it, readiness in preparedness in spirit to be nourishing what would release the fragrance of Christ among the brethren. This is open to us. It is not too late to be gathering wood. We know that in Haggai the reference to going up into the mountain and collecting wood was for building rather than for burning, but there is still scope for bringing wood for burning, bringing wood to nourish enthusiasm for Christ among the saints, joy in Christ's things, rejoicing in the things of Jesus Christ. You can see that when Paul writes about the enemies of the cross of Christ and those who do not mind the things of Jesus Christ, these were persons who had stopped bringing wood and the fire was going out, even if it was not quite out. The Philippian epistle relates to bringing wood in order to keep things kindled among the saints. That is what is needed in our own day, so easily does the fire die down. Check your own meeting, check your weeknight reading, check your ministry meeting, check how quickly brothers will pray. Is the fire going down? Some people would say it is when they wait five minutes for a prayer. The sisters cannot then bring wood, except that they can pray, pray for someone to pray. If the fire is there someone will pray, someone will speak, someone will have a word from the Lord, someone will find that on Friday night things are as lively as they were on Lord's day afternoon, because the fire has been fed all the week, fed with impressions about Jesus in His blessed humanity. You cannot exactly associate the idea of wood with God; it does not speak to us of God; it speaks to us of Jesus, and in one setting after another I have endeavoured to say just a word to suggest lines of thought to the brethren on which they might develop their own thoughts and their own contribution; but what I do urge upon the brethren is that if they want the fire to be kept alight, then they must bring what will keep it alight. You must bring it in yourself and you must bring it to the meeting. It does not matter whether you are a brother or a sister, bring wood to the meeting, things that will cause the release of something fresh for God and for the saints. I trust that everyone here is committed to the proposition that the fire will not go out, but it will go out unless you do something. You may say, It is al right, so-andso is here today! he will look after things in this address. He will not, you know. What he is dependent on is the Spirit and the Lord, the Father and your prayer. Things will go out unless you take your part.

I trust everyone is committed to the proposition that the fire is not to go out. Beloved, it needs to be freshly sustained all the time by persons who are devoted to bringing wood that is easily combustible, that easily releases something among the brethren. We can all do it. There is often far more fragrance released in the service of God by five words by a young brother, there is often - my mother used to say - more released by a mistake in the service of God than by well-ordered phraseology learned out of whatever books of ministry. Something fresh transforms the whole scene and could be brought in. I understand that a beloved brother who served in this city recently said (I think I have heard him say it before, but then we all say things twice) that it would be a great thing if some young brother said something at the Supper that had never been said before. It is an excellent thing when something that has never been said before comes in. You know that someone has been gathering wood, and once you know someone is gathering wood you know the fire will not go out. The great thing is to join in the gathering and bring wood yourself so that the fire does not go out.

May the Lord just use these impressions to encourage us to fresh committal to our apprehension of the Person of Christ and to the contribution of impressions to the reality of what is already among the saints, that the fire may be kept burning, that it may not go out and that He may be glorified in it and be well pleased with the result. For His Name's sake.

 

GLASGOW

23 April 1978