…when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. – Isaiah 43:2
I see iniquity raging on every side. Its flames are fanned by every wind of fashion. And fresh victims are being constantly drawn in. It spreads to every class. Not the palace nor the hovel are safe. Not the lofty piles that are raised for merchandise, nor the graceful edifice that is constructed for worship. Iniquity, whose contagion is fearful as fire, spreads and preys upon all things that are homely and comely, things useful and things sacred are not exempt…I see today before my mind’s eye the blackened skeletons of hundreds of fair professions. Multitudes—multitudes have perished in the valley of temptation who once, to all human judgment, had bid fair for heaven and made a show in the flesh! How many, too, have fallen under the attacks of Satan! This is a fire that does burn. Many a man has said, “I will be a pilgrim;” but he has met Apollyon on the road and he has turned back. Many a man has put on the harness, but he has given up the battle quickly; he put his hand to the plough and looked back. There are more pillars of salt than one. If Lot’s wife were a solitary specimen, it were well, but there have been tens of thousands who, like her, have looked back to the plains of Sodom, and like her, as they are in their spirit, have stood forever what they were—lost souls. We ought not to look upon our dangers with contempt. They are dangers, they are trials, we ought to look upon our temptations as fires. Oh, they are fires! If you think they are not fires, you are mistaken. If you enter then, in your own strength, saying “Oh I could bear them,” you will find that they are real fires, which, with forked tongues, shall lick up your blood, consume it in an instant, if you have not some better guard than your own creature power.
He Hath Said 