The fire is the prelude to the glory returning. The glory will even become visible upon the faces of God’s people. The deeper the fire is applied to us, the sooner we will see it manifesting itself in the physical realm.
The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, and that dwells in us, will also quicken our mortal bodies (Romans 8:11). Sooner or later the Holy Spirit affects the body, reaching down into the physical realm after first starting with the spiritual realm.
The Holy Spirit begins to refine our souls with fire, and then we feel the effects in our physical bodies. That is why some of us begin our walk with God under such great stress and agony of spirit. As soon as we begin walking, whatever God does in our spirits also comes through to the physical realm.
It is scriptural and very necessary that the Lord break through to the physical realm where all our senses have been dead to God for so long. We begin to see in the spirit and then in the natural.
In New Testament times, the believers saw angels and talked with them because their senses were tuned to the spirit world. This ability has been lost, and it must be restored to us. “Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. Your sons and daughters will prophesy” (Acts 2:17).
Through prophetic utterance and prophetic perception, God is bringing all our senses into focus so that we can begin to hear His voice. No longer is it only a still, small voice down deep in the heart. God has many different ways of speaking and confirming truth to the believers.
We need to be prepared to enter into every phase of the restoration. We experience the fire in our soul until the chaff is burned away. Soon we will find that even our soul and body is alert to God and senses the presence of the Lord and the spirit world.
We cannot complain about God’s dealings. A walk with God is our only hope. Our life has no value without it. We need to be patient with our brothers and sisters problems and faults. They have not yet experienced the fire. We need to have faith for them. They will go through the fire until their area of failure is burned out and the chaff is gone.
When people start walking with God, almost immediately every relationship is thrown into uncertainty. The fire has come. Before they walked with God, their relationships may have been unbalanced, but they had worked out some kind of compromise. When God starts to set things in order; He puts the fire to their lives and they have to start all over.
The Lord reverses everything in our life. He brings the mountains low and fills the valleys. Before the fire, our “ups” sometimes did not last very long, and our “downs” lasted a long time. We may still have mountain-top experiences, but they are much more level after we go through the fire. We are being prepared to go through the tribulation, through troubles, and through judgments.
Paul said, According to the grace of God which was given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation…but let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 3:10–11. If a man builds upon a foundation of gold, silver, and precious stones, the building will stand. But if he builds upon wood, hay, and stubble, it will not stand because the day will declare it. It will be tried by fire.
People will wonder as they see church after church in the denominations fall. Wood, hay, and stubble burn very rapidly. The gold, silver, and precious stones are what God desires. He is constructing a fireproof structure. When God brings forth a church by the Holy Spirit today, the pastor often is not sure if God is working with him or against him. Just when he has that church moving along fine, it seems as if the Lord decides to check it out to see if it is really what He wants. He walks through, like a building inspector, and throws in a lot of matches. If it burns up, that is too bad; it was not what He wanted. As the building inspector, He has certain specifications for the building: if it will burn, then it is not good enough.
A day of judgment is coming which will determine if a work is of wood, hay, or stubble. The Lord is putting the fire to us now to prepare us.
Before we come into a walk with God we are only half saved. When the Lord puts the fire to us, we receive the rest of it in a hurry. We become saved and delivered completely. This happens because the Lord drives us into the appropriation of a complete and full experience.
Fire is the source of revelation. It illuminates; it sheds light. Things will lie covered over in our life until the Lord puts the fire to us; then immediately our area of weakness or need comes to the surface, and we know that it has to be dealt with. We cannot get away with it any longer.
We have to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying and submit to the Lord. We have to Stand transparent before the Lord, and let Him deal with us. We cannot be touchy or easily embarrassed. Everything that is hidden will be unveiled shortly. God is starting with His people so that they will have immunity in a day of judgment.
The world is about to go through the greatest baptism of fire and judgment and exposure of sin that it has ever seen. If we are to be exposed to the judgments, then we will have to become immune to them if we expect to survive. We can be either a partaker of the judgments of the world, or we can judge ourselves now and ask the Lord to put the fire to us.
The living Word slays the antichrist of self who is sitting on the throne of our temple. We have to be delivered from the mark of the beast within us. Then by the Holy Spirit we can say, “Jesus is Lord.” No man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 12:3).We have to go through the fire until all the other lords that have had dominion over us have been burned up.
The Lordship of Jesus is involved with the baptism of fire. He becomes Lord only if He burns up all the other lords. Everything else that has dominion over our life must be destroyed and brought down.
Hobbies and interests that once intrigued us must be cast aside. We have to become addicted to doing His will. The cry and prayer and proclamation of our heart must be, not my will but Thine be done! We have to shout it!
We do not merely accept His will. We Demand it! The fire must burn out the reluctance in our heart. We have to go deeper into a walk with God. Submit to the fire He puts to our life. Our prayer must be, “Lord, fill me with your Spirit and help me to really glorify you.
The one key that will open the door to the greater works, to the exploits, and to the worldwide ministry is the baptism of fire.
We are contending for the restoration of buried truths. Today the Lord is doing a quick work in the earth.
We have been falling short of the power and purity that existed in the early Church. Where are the exploits? If we were filled with the Spirit people would ask us “What must we do to be saved?”
God is now restoring the duality of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. The knowledge of this will open the door to a flow of revelation to us.
At the Feast of Passover, according to the instructions of Moses, the Israelites killed one lamb; but at the Feast of Pentecost, they killed seven lambs. When you see the Lamb of God (the Lion of the tribe of Judah) represented in the New Testament in the book of Revelation, you do not see just a lamb; you see a lamb with seven heads, representing the perfect fullness of Christ in His Church.
At the Feast of Passover a sheaf of grain was waved; but at the Feast of Pentecost the wheat was ground into fine flour and baked in an oven into two loaves which were waved before the Lord (two being the number of Christ and His Church).
On the day of Pentecost, described in the book of Acts, the symbolism of that feast was being manifested. Those believers were the firstfruits of all the earth to come forth (after Christ). This is why we say that the Church was born on the day of Pentecost. It was born in the sense that one hundred and twenty people became the wave offering before the Lord, the first bread which God was going to break and multiply to feed the world.