Keep the Charge — G.W. North

The Altar, the Fire of God, and the Needs of the World

Those of us that were together last evening will remember that our subject was the altar and the fire of God. I want to continue in that strain tonight for as I have been, as I said last evening, I have been for a long time dwelling in my heart and in my thought around this great topic.

For I am convinced, even as the Lord Jesus Christ himself was convinced and said that the only answer to earth's needs is fire. For he said, I am come to send fire on the earth. Now, that's a tremendous thing because the prophets of old said that he was going to pour water on the earth.

You will remember, I will pour water on him that's thirsty. And I will send floods on the dry ground. Do you remember that? And you will know that that same blessed prophet, he said that the whole earth was going to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

And they lived very much in that element. It's very necessary for us to understand the great truth. But Jesus said, now I have come to send a fire on the earth. I think you will agree it's a rather different element.

So then let us, by God's grace, get into this great thing that God has to do. He has to do it, he's promised to do it. The thing that I have to decide for myself is this, and I pose the question to you.

If God wants to send fire on the earth, do you think he dare risk sending you? Have you answered the question to yourself? This may be the answer why so few are sent, although the position still remains the same, go into all the world.

But side by side with the command to go, he says, I only send fire. And here then is a great and balancing position for us to understand. You will recall, I trust, that this was a question that I had to answer for myself before God.

I invite you to do the same. For you and I have to remember that God has not got a double standard. He only has one. He hasn't got one standard for himself and another standard for man. And if you and I think that we can scrape through on some kind of lesser thing, we have sadly missed the whole truth that God came to reveal.

God has one standard and one standard only. He's not double-minded, so he's not unstable. He hasn't got a double standard, and so he's not a deceiver. Praise the Lord, he doesn't go into a double talk either.

So then we, receiving the truth of God into our hearts, should lay ourselves before him and let him speak to our hearts again, each one of us, if I may say, as he did last evening. All right, then, in the great theme of the altar and the fire, I want to read again in the second book of Chronicles.

Solomon, the Temple, and the Fire on the Altar

If I may be allowed to recap, we were thinking between chapters one and seven of second Chronicles last evening. We saw how this great man Solomon built the temple of God, something which his father David longed to do and from which he was prevented by the Lord.

Nevertheless, David pointed out the place for the foundation of the temple in the day that he found mercy of the Lord on Mount Moriah, called at that time, seeming to have lost its former identity, the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite.

And that is the place where you will remember he and all Israel found mercy of the Lord. For the angel stood there with his sword outstretched, ready to fulfill the deserved and threatened punishment.

But God was merciful and it says, God repented him of the evil that he had sought to do unto Israel and then God commanded Gad to go to Solomon and tell him to build an altar there in the threshing floor and David's heart soon forgiven and how wonderful it is.

Let it be an illustration to us that once a true man that wants to be sincere with God, are you this man, if you're listening to me tonight, are you this kind of woman that's listening to me tonight, that as soon as a true man gets right with God, instantly that which was broken off between his soul and God is restored.

And on the day of his obedience, there in the threshing floor, he found complete restoration and he had a revelation that this was to be the very foundation of the temple of God. Amen. And so Solomon comes along and he builds the temple at the very spot where David had built the altar and God had answered him in fire from heaven.

What a tremendous thing this is. And when Solomon had completed the temple, not being content with the glory of the Lord coming to fill the temple, he prayed beside the altar until he had what he knew must come.

And that is the fire of God upon the altar. That was the testimony in ancient Israel that God was there upon the mercy seat in the holiest of all. For you will remember that sometime, though we're not quite clear, nor because we're not told in the scripture, we, sometime after Israel was established in Israel, the, in Canaan, of course it became Israel, the pillar of fire that was the sign of God's presence removed.

We don't know when it happened, but it happened. It was there to guide them across the wilderness, which God, of course, had determined to be only a short trip, but you know, it was prolonged through disobedience.

Here again, his mercy extended to disobedient souls. And then they went into the promised land. And sometime after this, the pillar of cloud and fire passes out of scripture. And not the presence of the pillar of fire and cloud was the determining factor of whether God was there or not, but the pillar of fire on the altar.

Amen. And so, beloved, we've all got to come to this conclusion. Those of you who were here last night, bear with me just a minute or two more. We have to come to the conclusion that unless the fire is there, neither is the glory.

And we'd better undeceive ourselves. And if the glory isn't there, then neither is God. In the way that he intends to be there and filling everything. I know that we can theologically argue that God is everywhere and everywhere God.

That's the imminence of God. It's a theological proposition. So you see, he's in the pubs and in the brothels and in the gambling dens tonight. He's there. And he's God there. He's not there in a way he wants to be there.

Here then is the great thing for us to understand so that we come off mere doctrinal concepts and arguments and pass into reality. For God isn't a doctrine, he's God. And the doctrine of God doesn't mean that we know God at all, but to pass in without any knowledge of doctrine and know God is a bubble.

So the Lord wants us to move in this great realm. Now on this line, let us start to read tonight in the great 13th chapter. I think I call all the Bibles, Bible great. So if I keep using this word great, it's because I love the Bible.

All right, 2 Corinthians chapter 13, 2 Chronicles 13, I beg your pardon. 2 Chronicles 13. Though you wouldn't mind reading that chapter in 2nd Corinthians, I'm sure. All right, verse one. In the 18th year of King Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah.

By this time, the kingdom had been split. Chisholm had come, division had come. And he reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Micaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

And Abijah set the battle in array with an army of valiant men of war, even 400 ,000 chosen men. Jeroboam also set the battle in array against him with 800 ,000 chosen men being mighty men of valor. Two to one, that's what it was, two to one.

And Abijah stood up upon Mount Zemoreh, which is in Mount Ephraim, and said, hear me thou Jeroboam and all Israel. Ought ye not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, even to him and to his sons, thy a covenant of salt.

Yet Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the slave of Solomon, the son of David, is risen up and hath rebelled against the Lord. And there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial, and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them.

And now ye think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David, and ye be a great multitude, and there are with you golden calves, which Jeroboam made you for gods. Have ye not cast out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the nations of other lands, so that whosoever cometh to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no gods.

But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken him, and the priests which minister unto the Lord are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their business, and they burn. There it is.

Now, you will remember that this was the whole reason, that is if you were here last night, if not, there's a tape available, I dare say. You will remember that Solomon gave this as the very reason for building the temple.

He said, who am I that I should build a temple unto the Lord, save only to burn before him? That was the purpose. And here is this man, what a tremendous thing it is, Abijah got hold of the same thing, the revelation had come to him, clear.

He said, they wait upon their business, and they burn. And so, obviously, we see this great truth. The business of the Levites was to burn unto the Lord, all right? Hope you've got this great truth fixed in your heart.

If we read right down to the end of this verse, this is what we read. They burn unto the Lord every morning and every evening, burnt sacrifices, and sweet incense. The showbread also set they in order upon the pure table, and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof to burn every evening, for we keep the charge of the Lord our God, hallelujah.

Keeping the Charge of God

That then was the charge. Glory be to the name of the Lord. You ever received it? Have you ever received from the Lord the charge so that as though you were facing the Lord tonight, he says, now I charge you to do this.

Glorious thing it is. They were under charge from God. I wonder how many of us tonight have ever received a charge from God. Wonder we all, whether we all understand what it is that I'm talking about.

Charge from God. Wesley has a singing, you know? A charge to keep I have. A God to glorify. A never dying soul to save. That's his own he's talking about. And fit it for the sky. Why? How? By keeping the charge.

Now my beloved brothers and sisters, I fear that there are so many people have never been in this place where they've received a charge from God. And they've received blessings from God. They've had promises from God.

They love promises. They talk about living in the promises. I hear people shouting about living in the promises, keep the promises. They seem to forget that God gives commandments and charges as well as promises.

They want the promises. They want the blessings. They want everything else. But oh, to be a faithful man before God, someone upon whom God can rely. Someone who's got truth and honesty and righteousness in them.

Who received from God this great commandment. Oh, beloved. You can see these kinds of people. Just take the great apostle Paul. He's found saying in the scripture when he wrote to the Corinthians, for instance, that God had committed the gospel to his trust.

I've been, we've been put in trust with the gospel, he said, or it be to God. Has God ever been able to put anything in trust with you? You remember when he wrote to the Galatians, he said, I went up to Jerusalem.

You must find it in the second chapter. And he said, no, we didn't allow this. I'm using colloquialisms now. You must read it for yourself. Didn't allow this. We didn't give in to that. And why? So that the truth of the gospel should continue with you.

And he wrote to the Corinthians. And to remember, he says, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. The man was under charge from God. He'd been put in trust with something. And this is precisely what had happened to the Israel nation.

They'd been put in trust and God had charged them. And the charge that they had was that they were to burn before God. All the time as a nation, this is why the Levites and from the Levites, the Aaronic family were selected so that they, in the name of all Israel, because all Israel couldn't go swarming into the tabernacle or the temple.

There were millions of them. That in the name of all the people, they should keep the charge of God. Not as individuals, but as Israel. Standing for the whole of the people. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Do you understand this? And that's what they did. And that's why Israel tithes to keep the priests. That's why Israel gave up their substance to keep the priests. So that the priests should represent them to God.

That's right. Now we know that system has disappeared. And when we come into the New Testament, hallelujah, when we're born of God, we're all born to be priests of the Lord. To come into the great family and household of Christ.

You must read the Hebrews letter, which as we were thinking last night is the great priestly letter of the New Testament. And you know, beloved, this is your job. Your job on the earth is not just to serve the governor who gives you your week's money.

Or whether it is. You are to serve him and you're to serve him as though you were Jesus serving him. If you can't serve him as Jesus, get out. That's not your first calling. Your first calling isn't to be this, a servant of the country or a servant of the society or a servant of somebody else, of some party, a slave of this, that or the other.

Your calling, once you are born of God, is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Live or die for it. That's your first calling. And you and I are to see this. And we're under a great charge from God. Hallelujah.

Pentecost and the Fire of the New Covenant

Now God showed us immediately when he instituted that great second covenant, the new covenant, through the blood of the Lamb, on the day of Pentecost, when he instituted the new covenant, it was fire on the day of Pentecost.

You will remember that they were all gathered together in that upper room, the whole 120 of them. And suddenly you were familiar with these words, the same as I am. Suddenly they heard a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.

And it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire. And it sat upon each of them. Hallelujah. And here you have the great reason for the sound of the rushing mighty wind.

I don't know whether you've ever been to one of these great conflagrations, whether you've ever been to a great fire. Have you? When great buildings or warehouses or what it may catch fire. And whenever you go to them, you'll hear this sound of the great rushing mighty wind.

Why? Because the fire is there. The oxygen is rushing in to take the place of the oxygen that the fire is consuming. That's what gives the sound of the roaring. When you say, you hear the roaring. So the roaring, the noise is only the sound of the coming of the fire.

Amen. Hallelujah. The important thing was not that they were speaking in tongues though there was speaking in tongues and glory be to God and it's here to this day. But is the fire here today? You who speak in tongues, is the fire there?

That's the great thing. The fire came. Glory be to the name of the Lord. For you who don't speak in tongues, is the fire there? What a tremendous thing God is saying. Bless the name of the Lord. The charge.

God encrusted men and women with a fire. And you only have to read your New Testament. You read right through from Acts 2, right on through and you read fire. Oh, it doesn't talk about it. But if you've got eyes to see, that's what you see.

A people that just lived and burned together for God.

Oh, glory be to the name of the Lord.

There was a time when God opened my eyes to that great verse in James chapter one, which says this, that in him there is no shadow of turning. And he showed me that as he started on the day of Pentecost in this great covenant, so he meant to go on.

He's not turned from it. He's not turned from it. It's exactly the same now as it was then. God is doing mighty and wonderful things, beloved. And he wants you, he wants you completely. He wants to consume and consume in you until there's nothing left in you but what is of God and for God and for his kingdom and for his glory, for you will notice that they talked about in this story that we read, they talked about the kingdom of God in the hand of David.

If you've got the kingdom of God in your hand, you can have the kingdom of God in your hand. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Who has the kingdom of God in their hands? The people that burn and keep the charge.

They have the kingdom of God in their hands. God has given it in a covenant of salt. That's what they said. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And in Mark's gospel, you may have read this verse and wondered what it was all about at some time where it says that every sacrifice has to be salted with salt.

That's what it said because it's the salt of the covenant. It's always a reminder that the sacrifice is in the covenant of God. And you shall be salted with fire, said Jesus in that same verse in Mark.

The salting is the fire. No fire, no salt. No fire, no glory. No salt, no covenant. Unless my reasoning faculty isn't right. So beloved, you and I see the importance of this. I'm not here tonight to appeal for one special person as though he was some Aaron or Aaron's son, some Nadab and Abihu or who they may be.

One in a multitude, a handful out of a nation. That's what it was in olden times. God has a nation of priests. This is what he says. Let me turn you to him. Go back with me into the book of Exodus. Glory be to the name of the Lord.

A Kingdom of Priests in Exodus

It is written here so large that only those who won't see do not see it. And in the 19th chapter of the book of Exodus, we read this. In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai.

Verse three, Moses went up unto God and the Lord called unto him out of the mountains saying, thus shall I say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel, you have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bear you on eagle's wings and brought you unto myself.

Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed. Now listen to this. He didn't say, if you will obey the 10 commandments indeed in case you may have got it into your mind about legalism, the sort of words that are being bandied about in these days when people want to grant you liberty to live in the flesh.

He says, if you will obey my voice, amen. Now get this clear, obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant. Then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people for all the earth is mine and you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests.

He didn't say, there will be a few priests in my kingdom. He says, you all shall be a kingdom of priests and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shall speak unto the children of Israel. Hallelujah.

There will be a kingdom of priests. He born them on eagle's wings to himself that they shall be in the land that he has reserved unto them that they should be a whole kingdom of priests. But as I have already said, they were so many in number that the tabernacle wouldn't have contained them if all had to go there.

So God selected just this family, a representative family. Hallelujah. But the whole kingdom was a kingdom of priests. That's why he said, the kingdom of God in the hand of David, the kingdom of priests.

And their charge was not to conquer the earth particularly, not to kill the giants abundantly, not to go wonderful great vines and have marvelous pomegranates and great big herds and floods of milk and hives of honey.

It was to keep the charge to burn unto God. That was what it's all about. A kingdom of God is a kingdom of fire. Oh, bless the name of the Lord. Oh God, keep me burning. Lord, I want the fire. I don't know what you want.

The fire. You see, God is so keen about this. Let's go back again into that Exodus or if you like on, shall we? In that same Exodus chapter book, we read in chapter 20, you know, God spoke all these words.

Now this will date you. I don't suppose it happens like this in schools today. All you school moms and masters that are here and I don't know what lecturers, whoever you may be, this will date you. You don't teach your class the Ten Commandments today, do you?

But when I went to school, I learned the Ten Commandments at school. I don't teach them that now. They teach them how to commit fornication and watch the television. That's what they do. But when I went to school, they taught them not to commit adultery.

Hallelujah. They turned me, they taught me the Ten Commandments. Did they teach you when you went to school? If I said, put your hand up, I wonder how many. Just a few, you see? All the old fogies like me, for instance.

All right. Well, here is the chapter that contains the first utterance of the Ten Commandments of God. Now, you know them, I hope, so well. So I'm going to catch on from verse 18. And God and all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountains smoking.

And when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, speak thou with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die. And Moses, now note this verse, said unto the people, fear not, for God is come to prove you and that his fear may be before your faces.

And look at these next four words. That you sin not. Glory be to God. Right back there, you see, in the Old Testament, that you sin not. You're not surprised then when you meet the Lord Jesus in the New Testament, that you find him saying to a man and to a woman, go and sin no more.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. This is why the 10 Commandments were given, beloved, to keep people from sin. That you sin not. How many of you have received that glorious word deep down into your heart, that you sin not.

That you sin not. They were a restraint from sin. But now let's go on. Moses says to the people, oh sorry, the people stood afar off, 21. And Moses drew near into the thick darkness where God was. And the Lord said unto Moses, thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel.

You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold. And here, listen, the next thing he's talking about is an altar.

He goes straight from the 10 Commandments and telling them they mustn't sin. And then the altar. There it is. An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me. And shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings and so on.

Here it is. God, the people, and the altar. Plain, isn't it? No instructions yet about building this or making that. If you can't build me an altar, don't build me a house. I will not live with people who will not burn upon the altar.

That's what the implication of it is. But if a man or a woman will build the altar and will keep the altar under the Lord, he'll live with them. He'll say, make me a house. That's where I want to live, where the altar is.

I'll record my name there. You must read on through this chapter. My name will be there. You will remember that Solomon said he was going to build a magnificent house because it was going to be a house under the name of God.

That's what he said. Glory be to the Lord. He wants to be associated with the altar. That's what he's associated with, with the fire. The clearest representation of God in Israel, visible representation, was the altar and the fire on it.

Burning Continually Before God

You know the question I'm going to ask you now, don't you? Is that what people see about you? God sees, hallelujah. Do they see that? Now, beloved, this great charge from God, your commission is to burn.

If you don't burn for God, you'll burn for someone else and something else. It is totally impossible for men and women to live without burning. Thou burn for sin, thou burn for a man, or thou burn for a woman, or men or women.

That's what thou'll do. Thou'll either burn with God or thou'll burn with lust. One of the two. It's impossible to live without burning. The sign that you're dead, one of the great signs that you're dead is that you grow colder than coal, as well as stiffer than steel.

The coldness of death, the fire's gone. The wolves. You're not alive, so you're not alive. You're not hot, so you're dead. Hallelujah. Now may God write this thing so clearly in all our hearts, beloved, that we may know exactly what he's saying to us.

Praise the name of the Lord. To burn for God is the whole thing. And to burn constantly, this was another great thing so far as God was concerned. Now you will remember that soon after this that we read here in the 20th chapter of Exodus, if you don't know it, well just keep reading your Bible and then you will.

It's very easy to know. You just read it and see. And when you're reading the Bible, buy the truth, man, if you buy it with your blood. Buy it with your concentration, man, woman. Buy it with all the powers and cost of your being.

Buy the truth when you read the Bible. Sell the night hours for it if necessary. Sell your pleasures for it. Sell your television for it if you've got one. Buy the truth and don't sell it once you get it.

That's what the Bible says. You read it through. And when you get to chapter 25 you will find that God commands Moses to build the tabernacle. One of the pieces of furniture was the altar. Praise the name of the Lord.

And well, it was made. And then when you get to the book of Numbers, you know Moses wrote all the first five books of the Bible. When you get to the book of Numbers, which is the fourth book in the Bible, you will find that the Lord gives you an account of the journeyings of the children of Israel.

And you will see how the pieces of furniture have to be transported. Glory be to God. All right, so then here was the tabernacle set up. And the great services went on. But then when God decided to move the tabernacle, what happened to the fire on the altar?

It went out. It went out. They had to put the fire out. This was one of the great purposes of God in getting this thing made permanent. The altar was to be built and Solomon built it and he put it there.

And that's why he was on his knees praying for the fire to come down. The fire was going to come down on that altar. And by the grace of God, it would never go out. Never. Isn't this like some people?

Do you know, they're burning for a week, burning for a month and then it's out. Like so many people experience this. Ooh, they say, had a mighty experience, wonderful baptism and I don't know what. And then it's out.

You see, then of course they have a sort of a revival. They go to a conference or something or they go to some sort of healing campaign or you know, something like that. And then the fire's all stoked up again.

And then out. Am I talking about your life? Blow hot, blow cold. One of the great purposes of God in having that temple built was the great altar of God to stand there and a fire to come down on it. Bless God for this man, Solomon.

Hallelujah. And it should keep burning. Burning, burning, burning, burning. It went on beloved for generations. Burning, burning, burning, burning. Oh, glory be to the name of the Lord. Ah, Solomon reigned a good long time and burning all through his lifetime.

Wouldn't it be wonderful? How many of some of you people, how long have some of you people been born again of God? A great fire came down and started to burn in you. Eh? And is it still burning? Is it burning in your heart now?

Does God believe it is? Does the church know it is? Oh, not with a false zeal of human fire, not with carnal appetites and basic lusts, but clear and pure and burning as sweet and as powerful as ever in your life to charge from God.

Charge from God. We are keeping the charge, they said. We are keeping the charge, bless God, for a bygoness. Bless him. He was Solomon's grandson. He's gone down as a third generation. Hallelujah. Praise him.

We keep the charge of the Lord, he said. We keep the charge of the Lord. Don't you think it would be marvelous, beloved, if you could rise to your feet now and stand as a bygoness stood before the enemies of the Lord.

We keep the charge of the Lord. Challenging the enemy. Look at you, he said, you've got God. Look to Jeroboam, the son of Nebeth, he said. He said, anybody can be a priest in your lot. Oh, they had false fire because they had false God.

This sometimes I fear is the thing that one hears in people, a false fire that's there instead of the real glorious fire of God consuming them. You always know when the fire of God is consuming a man or a woman.

Their life is wholly taken up for God than something that flares up in a meeting and then goes dead. Something that burns steadily, constantly. He said, we keep the charge of the Lord. We burn night and morning.

We burn, he said. It's the same with us all through the day. Hallelujah. You burn for the Lord Jesus in your homes, in your office, in the place where you work, in your school, in that hospital. Do you?

Burn for the Lord. Hallelujah. Is there a great fire in you for the Lord? You love the Lord. You seek the quiet place. You've got to burn for Jesus. Do you? You'll know. How about those enemies out there?

Outnumbered two to one. There's a man full of confidence. This is the way to victory. Burn, keep the charge. That's the way to victory. After the charge of the Lord, he said. This is why so many people keep going down to defeat.

They don't keep the charge. It's plain. You keep the charge of God and you'll be the devil's master. You'll win the victory. Every time, how confident was this man, Abijah? Let's look at him again. For I see by my watch, I must soon stop preaching.

Verse 11, chapter 13. They burn under the Lord. 2 Chronicles 13, verse 11.

They burn under the Lord.

Every morning and every evening, birds sacrifices and sweet incense. Hallelujah. You know, that place was all fire. Wasn't it? The track of the priests was one. They moved between two altars. There was the altar at the gate on which the animals were hid.

Hallelujah. And they who had to lay down their life were put on that altar and they lived again in the flames. Hallelujah. Being consumed under God. And the priests used to move between that altar and the altar in the holy place.

For in the holy place, just before the veil, there was another altar, a golden one. On this, beloved, no great carcasses were laid. No blood came there. On there, they had to put the incense. Now, had we time tonight, and we haven't, of course, but you can read it in the book of Exodus.

I won't tell you what chapter. Why should I? I'm not your concordance. You must know for yourself. You will find how God gave instructions for spices to be taken. And they had to be pounded down in the mortar with the pestle until it was down to dust.

Ground down, mixed with the art of the apothecary. It was a perfume, sweet incense. None must be made like unto it in all Israel. No false fire. The fire had to come down from heaven. No false incense either.

And that had to be put there on the altar. And there in that golden altar, not with great flames, for soon it would have melted the gold. The altar of brass could withstand the great leaping flames. But there, beloved, on that little golden altar, the incense was put, and there was fire in the holy place, smoldering, burning.

No flames exposed, but fire there. And this time, beloved, it was the sweet, glorious smell of what was being burned out there on the altar. It was, if you like, transcribed, transposed, transformed from the big altar, and the meaning of it was there, burning before God, who was living just behind the veil.

Sweet-smelling savor unto the Lord, burning night and day. Said your light, there is that which men can see, the great leaping flames, the fat being consumed, the fire rising high from the altar. Everybody knew in the flesh that God was there.