Fighting Fire With Fire
Lamentations 1:12-13 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was dealt out to me, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger! 13 From above He has sent fire into my bones, and it prevailed against them. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back. He has made me hopelessly miserable and faint all the day long.
Jeremiah 20:9 But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. NIV
Jeremiah, was the prophet and author of both Biblical books, Jeremiah and Lamentations. In the above passages he mentions fire in two different contexts. In one context, fire is a source of sorrow, affliction, and misery, and the other is none other than the Word of the Lord.
Our culture has coined many familiar phrases related to fire: A baptism of fire; Fire and brimstone; Fire away!; On fire; Fired-up; Out of the frying pan into the fire; To add fuel to the fire; To breathe fire; To have fire in your belly; To get fired; To go through fire and water; Where there is smoke there is fire; To set the world on fire; and To play with fire. Yet the phrase which comes to mind as I contrast the writings of Jeremiah is: fight fire with fire. Idioms often find their origin in some obscure, long forgotten practice that at one time was well known. Fighting fire with fire is one of those idioms. Its humble origins are associated with none other than William Shakespeare who created the phrase in his play King John, 1595: Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire; threaten the threatener and outface the brow, of bragging horror….
Gary Martin, creator of Phrase Finder website added: The Bard may have been the first to put the notion on paper, but he didn’t coin the phrase ‘fight fire with fire’, that came much later. The source of this phrase was actual fire-fighting that was taken on by US settlers in the 19th century. They attempted to guard against grass or forest fires by deliberately raising small controllable fires, which they called ‘back-fires’, to remove any flammable material in advance of a larger fire and so deprive it of fuel. This literal ‘fighting fire with fire’ was often successful, although the settlers’ lack of effective fire control equipment meant that their own fires occasionally got out of control and made matters worse rather than better. One such failure was recorded in Caroline Kirkland’s novel, based on her experiences of frontier Michigan in the 1840s, A New Home – Who’ll Follow? Or, Glimpses of Western Life (written under the pseudonym of Mrs. Mary Clavers): The more experienced of the neighbours declared there was nothing now but to make a “back-fire!” So home-ward all ran, and set about kindling an opposing serpent which should “swallow up the rest;” but it proved too late. The flames only reached our stable and haystacks the sooner,…
Jeremiah laments, Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was dealt out to me…? How many of us can admit to connecting with that phrase? As a casual observer it would be fairly easy to criticize Jeremiah for having his monumental pity party. But following closer inspection one can quickly see he had good reason to make such a boast. For you see, not only had he prophesied the events that were to happen in Israel – to the people of Israel – he experienced them in real time as he wrote Lamentations. Can you imagine prophesying a future cataclysmic event only to have to experience it with the people; experiencing it with the people who caused the judgment of God? Yet, there is a lesson we can learn from Jeremiah’s suffering: Fight Fire with Fire. What do I mean? Hebrews 12:27-29 states: Now this expression, Yet once more, indicates the final removal and transformation of all [that can be] shaken—that is, of that which has been created—in order that what cannot be shaken may remain and continue.28 Let us therefore, receiving a kingdom that is firm and stable and cannot be shaken, offer to God pleasing service and acceptable worship, with modesty and pious care and godly fear and awe;29 For our God [is indeed] a consuming fire. Then Jeremiah 23:29 adds: Is not My word like fire [that consumes all that cannot endure the test]? says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks in pieces the rock [of most stubborn resistance]?
In what possible way could you apply all of this? Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. What does that word mean”everything” mean in Greek? Everything! Everything means everything. The only Rock that can’t be moved is Jesus and His Word. They are unshakable. They have had their challengers over the centuries but Jesus and His Word remains unmoved. Since everything is going to be shaken then we need to start a Fire that is far greater than the fires of sorrow, affliction, and misery. His fire is none other than Him and His Word. The disciples, who were followers of Jesus, can attest to the fact that at Pentecost they were baptized in and with the Holy Spirit and with Fire. Theologians, and Bible teachers have attempted to water down the meaning of that phrase by stating that it really means difficulties, or trials. But do not be mistaken. The FIRE is none other than God Almighty Himself. We fight the world’s fires with His Fire – His Presence and His Word. Our response-ability (we have the ability to respond) is to provide the wood for the sacrifice in order that the FIRE of His Presence and Word burns brighter than our circumstances. Can you say that is true in your life?
