Although believers in past generations were able to participate in the fire of the Lord in a measure, the experience is specifically reserved for those who will enter into it today. When Aaron’s sons presented strange fire before the Lord, they were struck dead (Leviticus 9 and 10). In the end time, one thing that will separate the true remnant of God from the false which parades as being the remnant will be the false, psychic fire. Many people will watch what God is doing and will try to produce the same thing; but because it is false, it will trigger the judgments of the Lord. They will begin at that point.
The false remnant will be motivated by ambition. Jude 1:11 describes their hypocrisy as the way of Cain, the error of Balaam, and the rebellion of Korah. Cain’s manner of bringing his offering revealed his attitude and what he was probably thinking: “So, God wants a sacrifice? Here it is.” And then he probably threw some fruit or grain on the altar. He only went through the motions of making a sacrifice to God, but he did not do what God had said. When God looked upon Abel’s sacrifice, it was acceptable; but Cain’s offering was rejected. The false, hypocritical service to God may seem to be right, but it is not acceptable to Him.
God is looking for those who will have a pure walk with Him; yet the whole history of the Church has shown a pattern of movements rising and then going astray into promotion and organization. The purity that they had at the beginning could not be salvaged. The walk which God is bringing forth now is being carefully tested by the Lord; and it will not go astray if it has the deep work of the cross upon it continually. A true walk with the Lord not only gives joy and blessing as we worship Him; it also must bring the fire of the Lord which consumes the chaff and baptizes us into one Body.
Do not condemn yourself over God’s fire; just commit yourself to it. Let the Lord burn out the chaff. Let Him deal with you. Do not become weary when the Lord brings His chastening, because it will make you a partaker of His holiness. It leads you right into a full participation with everything that He is doing in the earth. The purging fire of the Lord will take away that last little bit of chaff, that last reservation in your thinking which has kept you from believing in absolute perfection. How reluctant we are to believe that God actually will perfect us, that we are truly going to be a Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
It is difficult for us to grasp this, and so we draw back and say, “Oh, that seems like some self-righteous, pharisaic idea.” This is far beyond the area of hypocritical self-righteousness. The people who hope for the Lord’s appearing purify themselves and make themselves ready (I John 3:3). When you expect a special visitor, you make preparations. You clean the house, prepare the meal, and then you bathe and dress. When your guest arrives, you may try to appear very casual as you greet him at the door, saying, “Glad you dropped in,” even though you anticipated his coming and made preparations. Since you do this on a human plane, you can understand why you must do this in your spirit.
We are looking for the Lord to come, and when we see Him, we will be like Him. Our mortality shall be swallowed up in immortality. It will be marvelous; but in the meantime, we are cleaning up the house before He arrives. Every man who has this hope within him purifies himself because he knows the Lord is coming to complete the work. We will all be changed. We are getting ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb, and we will be beautifully dressed in that fine linen which is the righteous acts of the Church (Revelation 19:7–8). The King James Version refers to this as “the righteousness of the saints,” but the literal translation is “righteous acts,” which means the right actions that we make in faith. This is not false self-righteousness. This is the true righteousness, the actions we take because we believe God to become righteous. It is the repentance and the deep actions of faith that we exhibit in order to become that Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Ephesians 5:27).
I Corinthians 11:23–33 presents a unique revelation, inasmuch as the Apostle Paul was not present at the Last Supper. The references to Communion in the Gospels almost take a different slant. There Jesus said that it was set up as a memorial, as a real experience in the new covenant of His blood; however, His New Testament revelation was not really understood until Paul defined what the Communion service is to be to us, the fact that the judgment of fire can be anticipated and entered into at the Communion Table.
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. I Corinthians 11:23–33.
When you come to the Communion Table, examine yourself. Let there be divinely guided introspection. The Communion is to be a participation into judgment; and you must understand what you are doing and approach it in a worthy manner. This does not mean that you must be worthy or perfect to take the Communion, because it is a means of grace. This principle applies also to the experience of receiving the Holy Spirit. You do not need to be perfect to receive, for the Holy Spirit is a means of your perfection. If you had to wait until you were perfect, you would not need the Holy Spirit; the work would then already be done.
You do not wait until you are perfect to take Communion, but you must understand exactly what is taking place when you do take Communion. First of all, the precious body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that you partake of were given by the Heavenly Father to the full force of divine wrath and judgment. This means that when Jesus Christ hung upon the cross, the Lord laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but for the whole world (I John 2:2). This means that potentially the whole world could be saved if they would accept it. Jesus suffered for everyone and took every bit of sin upon Himself.
We do not believe that Jesus ever sinned, but He does not stand in heaven as One who has not sinned. He stands in heaven as One who was made sin for us. The Lord laid upon Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). Sin had to be imputed as completely to Him as the righteousness of God is imputed to us (II Corinthians 5:21). He became sin so that we could become righteous. If one factor works, the other works also. If you really believe that Jesus died for the ungodly, then you can enter into an appropriation of the righteousness and the godliness of Christ. No matter how guilty you have been, God sees you now as justified in His sight. No matter how pure and innocent Christ was, the Father still had to turn aside from Him. In the darkness our blessed Lord cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” God could not look upon this terrible distorted figure that was dying with all that sin laid upon Him.
This means that the Communion has to be a picture of the judgment that Christ went through for us. When we accept the body and the blood, when we drink the wine and eat the bread knowing this, we are partaking in a worthy manner. All the things within us are thereby judged, because He died to judge them and to take upon Himself the judgment of them. He died to bear the penalty for us; therefore our judgment is to take place now.
Eschatology, the doctrinal study of all the final events, shows us that the great white throne judgment is one of the supreme events in the end time. All the dead will be raised to stand before the great white throne and be judged by God the Father. You and I will never have a part in that judgment. Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection; upon him the second death has no power (Revelation 20:6). I never expect to appear at this judgment because my ticket has already been fixed by the Judge. The Lord has already taken my sin and paid my fine. All I did was accept it. When I accepted it, I moved from that place in time where I would be judged; and I moved right up to the present moment where I appropriate the full and complete judgment that was vented upon the Son of God on my behalf. When I kneel before the Lord and accept the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, that very moment I enter into the judgment that God wants to accomplish in my life. If we judge ourselves rightly, we will not be judged along with the world. This is the time to be judged!
From the Old Testament came the cry, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:23). It almost sounds as though the people at that time did not know what was within them. But now we have the Holy Spirit, and the command is given, “Examine yourself. The Holy Spirit will help you to know what is in you.” With His help you can examine yourself. He will show you more things than you want to admit are there. The Spirit that searches all things, even the deep things of God, can search you to the depth of your heart. The Spirit is the candle of the Lord illuminating the innermost parts of the soul.
Paul tells us, For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. The man who eats the bread and drinks of the cup indifferently, considering it just a religious ritual, is put in condemnation because he has not discerned that the Communion is to eliminate judgment from him. For this reason many are weak and sickly (verse 30). There is a judgment taking place now, as well as in the future afterlife. Some people work their way into their own hell long before they die. “The sins of some men go before them, while other men’s sins follow after them to judgment,” the Word tells us in I Timothy 5:24. If you see some fellow who seems to be getting away with a life of sin, you can be sure that he is not getting away with it. Sooner or later he will be dealt with. Some people seem to get caught the first time they commit a sin, and for them the processes of judgment begin immediately. Whether now, or later in a time of terrible reckoning, all are going to be judged.
Some of the early Christians threw themselves into almost premature judgment. For this reason, Paul said that some were sick and some slept. They died prematurely because they did not discern how to partake of the body and blood of the Lord as a judgment for their sins. Because they never appropriated the judgment of Christ on their behalf, they continued in the process of having God deal directly with them.
But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord. Paul is speaking here of two judgments. We have dealt first with the judgment that rested upon Christ on our behalf. Now we come to examine and judge ourselves. This is a good thing. Do it honestly and find out what is wrong with you; then come before the Lord and say, “Here, Lord, I see all of the wrong; and I just appropriate the blood of Jesus Christ for my forgiveness, for my cleansing.” And the Lord does it. When you judge it rightly, then you are not going to be judged. The Lord just keeps on blessing you.
There is nothing safer or better than to be a good repenter and a real believer in the blood of Jesus Christ. Be a good repenter and a real believer in the blood of Jesus Christ which was given for your sin. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. What will happen if you take the Communion with the attitude, “I don’t understand all of this, and I’m not going to get involved with it.” The Lord will start disciplining you, which is actually a form of judgment. He is trying to catch you and deal with you now. If He can deal with you now and get you to repent, then the sin that would cause Him to judge you along with the world is eliminated. Judgment is coming to the whole world that rejected Him. Thank God for what He is doing now with the fire. He is beginning to deal with your problems now, so that when God judges the world, you will be clean. Judgment will have taken place; you will already have gone through it. This is how you can maintain a state of righteousness and enter into a place of being without a spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
When you come to the Communion Table, open your heart; have it already prepared. Then ask, “Lord, what is wrong? What is there in me that has to be taken care of?” And when the Lord shows it to you, start exposing it to Him and appropriate the new covenant in His blood to forgive you of that sin and to loose you from it. This way you can maintain your stand before the Lord in a way that is really tremendous. The Holy Communion is a means whereby the grace of God can come to you. It is the holy operation that God has given to loose you from your guilt and the things that are wrong within you, and to bring you up into a state of grace in the name of the Lord.
Particularly in this end time, the Lord is restoring the ministry of the Lord’s Supper, because this is the time that we must enter into it completely, prior to the world’s judgment; we have to be there first. We must be the people whom God is blessing and purifying. Many will be purified and made white, but the wicked will do wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand; but the righteous will understand (Daniel 12:10).
You can be loosed even from the capacity to be deceived, and yet the wicked one is going to deceive the whole world and bring them right into judgment with him. By coming to God’s altar, you can say, “Lord, You can loose me from the spirit of deception that is in the world. I can walk through with an immunity because there is nothing within my heart responding to the evil that is in the world. I am not being reserved for judgments with the unbelieving for being guilty of the same kind of sin that they are. You have prepared my heart, Lord, and applied the precious blood of Jesus to it afresh so I will be one of those without spot or wrinkle or any blemish before the Lord.” Sometimes you come to the house of the Lord, knowing that you have done something wrong. Then do not hang around like someone who has just lost his franchise for citizenship. Do not sit there and condemn yourself. You can do something about it. Examine yourself, not to condemn, but to expose yourself and claim the full benefits of His grace. God will forgive and cleanse, and you will not be condemned along with the world, for He will help you out of it.
You could have bypassed most, if not all, of the severe discipline that God has brought to your life, if you had been honest to examine yourself at the Communion Table during those times when He was revealing things that were wrong. That is the place for you to come for your judgment. When you kneel, ask Him to forgive you, and He will. He will cleanse you.
We do not intend to be among those who are condemned with the world. As we see the clouds of judgment upon the horizon, we want to save ourselves from this wicked and adulterous generation. We want to loose ourselves from that which will be the common lot of the whole world. As a snare it is coming upon the face of the whole earth, and no one is going to escape. We must believe for the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us. The Holy Spirit will help us to examine ourselves. Have we been rebellious? We offend so much in word; have our tongues sinned against the Lord? Many times we tend to be lazy and indifferent in spirit, neglecting to press in.
Look within to see if you are an aggressive, wholly dedicated person who loves the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength. Is the Lord really enough for you, or do you have to look around to the world for support and meaning to your life? Search your heart to see if fear has made you covetous or greedy. Look to see if you are truly ready to leave all to follow Him. Search your heart to see if you are neglecting the things that should not be neglected. Look to the Lord to minister to your spirit that deep work of the Holy Spirit which helps you to repent and search your heart, not as an unbeliever, but as a believer who has a new covenant in His blood. Open your heart so completely to the Lord that you can respond to the gentlest leading of the Holy Spirit and not miss what He is trying to tell you.
When you come to the Communion Table, yearning and thirsting for the Lord and aware of your deep needs, believe that as you receive the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, you will experience at least a part of your great judgment day. The things within you will be judged, and the sufferings of Christ will atone for everything that is wrong.