Keeping Your Fire In The Fireplace

Once our kids became teenagers, it was almost hopeless trying to get all five Hutchcrafts together in one room. But I did find one thing that worked in the winter. You see, we have one fireplace in our house. It's in the living room and I would quietly turn down the thermostat on a cold night and build a roaring fire in the living room... and slowly, but surely, each member of the family would drift in. You see, we all love that fireplace, and nobody more than our youngest son, Brad. Now imagine I came home from work one day and I smelled smoke coming from upstairs. I call up to Brad and say, "Brad, do you smell smoke?" He says, "Yeah!" I say, "Brad, why?" He says, "I built a fire, dad. You know I love fire and I built one in my room" I say, "Brad, you don't have a fireplace in your room!" We got big trouble!

Well I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "KEEPING YOUR FIRE IN THE FIREPLACE."

Our word for today, from the Word Of God, comes from Proverbs 5, beginning in verse 15. These are verses that deal with the fire of sexual passion, a fire which God placed in our lives to bring warmth and love when you keep it in the right place. Two sexual relationships are described here. First, beginning in verse 15 of chapter 5, "Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well," is talking about marital faithfulness. "Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares, let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed. May you rejoice in the wife of your youth. May her breasts satisfy you always. May you ever be captivated by her love." Now this describes in graphic terms the "Fire of Sexual Love in the Fireplace," for which it was designed: Marriage! God says to go for it! Enjoy it! Hebrews 13:4 says, "Marriage is to be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure" - that's the fireplace.

Now here's the second sexual scenario - same fire, different result - Proverbs 6, beginning at verse 25: "Do not lust in your heart after the wayward woman's beauty, or let her captivate you with her eyes. Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?" Now here the fire of sexual love is outside the fireplace of a lifetime commitment, and there are damaging results. The results go beyond what may happen to you physically, like, say, disease! They burn your conscience, your self-respect. They burn your reputation, your relationship with God... your soul! they even rob you and your lifetime partner of one of the greatest gifts you could ever give them - the untarnished, untouched gift of your sexual purity. Maybe the fire of passion is puling you to be sexually involved outside the Designer's boundaries of marriage to have sex with someone before you're married; or maybe you're flirting with a physical relationship with someone outside your marriage. A few minutes of being warmed by the fire of sex are not worth years of being burned by it! It's just too expensive. Maybe you've already taken the fire outside of the fireplace of marriage and you're feeling the guilt and the shame of it. Well, the Lord wrote to some people who had sinned, sexually, and He wrote these hope-giving words (I think maybe they're for you too). He says, "That is what some of you were, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ." That's Corinthians 6:11. What Jesus bled for on that cross was the sin you now carry the weight of. If you will come to Him repentantly today and apply His death to that sin, He's promised to give you a spiritual shower that will make you clean, and forgiven and new! Fire's powerful stuff, especially the fire of sex. God gave it to us to warm us when it is in the fireplace of married love. Outside, you'll only get burned! "KEEP THE FIRE IN THE FIREPLACE!"

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