If we are truly filled with the Spirit we will be thrust into the threshing of our life. The chastening of the Lord will be upon us and the dealings of fire will come. When He has tried us, we shall come forth as pure gold.
In the Old Testament, when people were seeking the Lord, they made a sacrifice, and as the sign of their acceptance by the Lord, fire would fall upon the sacrifice. How much more will He bring the fire upon us so that you will be acceptable!
We have to bind the sacrifice to the horns of the altar.” The animal sacrifices were tied to the altar so they would not get up and walk off. We are to be a living sacrifice to the Lord.
Malachi prophesied that the Lord would come as a refiner’s fire to purify us, so that we may present offerings in righteousness
Judgment and the fires of the Lord will be in the whole earth, but right now the fire is in us. He is purifying us. Our sacrifices and offerings—our praises, our worship, our service—will be just as pure before the Lord as those in New Testament times.
The New Testament believers were basically no more qualified than we are. The reason God could use them was because they went through the fire. God baptized them with the Holy Spirit and fire. He is thoroughly threshing His floor and gathering the wheat into the garner; the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.
God must burn our past out of us until we stand only as a worshiper of the Lord. The fire removes professionalism. It takes away the ambition of seeking a place as James and John did. Our hope is based on the fact that the Lord is threshing us and burning the chaff.
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. This verse preceding the passage, if any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. When we go through the fire and speak the living word it will change the age, we will bring down principalities and powers.
God is destroying the obnoxious part of the human nature, especially individuality. He is making us one Body, and that is why individual ambition disappears. The collective visions and the Word that we are receiving become the burning realization of our lives.
When we submit to the fire in our own heart, we will be exactly what God wants us to be. Nothing of the old nature will cling to us. We need to ask the Lord to thresh us and take away the chaff.
God is going to start completing the work of fire within us in order that the judgments of the earth can begin. The judgments are not going to come apart from us. God is in readiness to avenge all disobedience when our obedience is complete (II Corinthians 10:6). First you have to be threshed, and the chaff has to be burned out of us. We will have to experience it. When it becomes a part of our being, then we can release Judgments in the earth.
We release judgments in the earth, because we are praying for God’s kingdom to come and every other kingdom brought down.
The reason there are delays in what God has promised to do for us, is because we have not gone through the fire.
The early Church moved effectively because of the baptism of fire that was worked in it along with the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Cloven tongues of fire sat upon them. It was a fulfillment (as Jesus had indicated) of John the Baptist’s prophecy that the One coming after him, whose shoes he was not worthy to untie, would baptize the people with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He whose fan was in His hand was going to thresh the floor and gather the wheat into the garner, but the chaff He would burn with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:11–12).
The chaff is something that grows on the wheat. we are the wheat, and so the Lord flails us. A flail is a manual threshing instrument. The wheat was flailed upon the stone to separate it from the chaff. The chaff was a part of its growth, just as our fleshly old nature is a part of us and is natural to us, we were born with it. It is a problem that only God can solve.
God says, “I will bring the chastening to you as My children, and when I am through dealing with you in My unique way, you will be separated from the chaff in your nature that must go.” This is what John the Baptist was illustrating when he prophesied about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the fire. The disciples experienced this baptism of fire on the day of Pentecost and then they became very effective.
The disciples were able to go forth to heal the sick and do various other things through an implicit, implied commission that was given to them by the Lord; and then it seemed to stop. But after the day of Pentecost, after the fire had been applied to their lives and their own carnality had been dealt with, they were able to move consistently. There were no longer the times of doubting and of clouded perception. The fire seemed to burn away those things that had restricted the disciples’ comprehension and dedication.
You never read, in the book of Acts, about the disciples getting into the same kind of dispute that caused the Lord to rebuke them when they were wondering who was to be the greatest. That was before the fire came. I suppose you could point to one controversy. Paul said that he withstood Peter to his face because he was to be blamed (Galatians 2:11–21). But that was not too serious; it was a matter of principle with Paul and a matter of expediency with Peter. There had to be some way for them to get together in that situation; so Paul confronted Peter about his attitude toward the Jews and the Gentiles in the Church. I know of no other conflict between the early apostles.
The apostles seemed to commend one another and build one another up. They walked without ambition. They walked without the independent secular spirit that sometimes afflicts the ministers of the Lord. It was the baptism of fire that came to open the door to that kind of walk.
Although we believe for certain things that God has prophesied over us, those prophecies involve not only us, but often they involve other individuals as well. What is to prevent them from coming to pass? The factor that God has to work in us is one thing, but God may have to work a factor in another person as well.
God’s promise to Abraham had two things in mind: first, the seed of Abraham would be blessed with that entire land; second, the Amorite nation would have complete opportunity to run their course, to follow what was in their own natures and in their own hearts. In God’s foreknowledge, He knew that the Amorites would come to the full place of wickedness. Then God would be justified in bringing the wars of annihilation, and He could tell Joshua, “Go in and utterly destroy all of them” (Deuteronomy 7:2).
The Canaanite woman was a “dog.” She had no right to be alive. If God’s Word had been completely obeyed under Joshua, that woman never would have existed. Her wicked forebears would have been slaughtered in the wars under Joshua. Even though we are completely disinherited, if we have faith, God will still bless us and say, “Go in peace: your faith has brought the answer.
In the days of the Amorites, God said, “I am going to destroy them, but their wickedness will have to run its course. It is going to take about four generations before they have reached the place where any tendency they have to seek me is subordinated to their tendency toward evil and wickedness.” When God said, “Destroy them all,” He was bringing judgment upon them, and at the same time He was bringing the blessing of inheritance upon His people.
This is exactly what God is doing now. Two things are happening, and we can appropriate them just as completely and quickly as the Lord sets them before us. These are the days when the iniquity in the world is coming to the full, like the iniquity of the Amorites. This is the day when denominationalism has run its course. Babylon must come down. If you are concerned about all the good people in Babylon, do what the Word of God says. Stand as a believer and pray, “Come out of her, God’s people; be not a partaker of her sins” (Revelation 18:4). Do not condemn the people in Babylon; just be one of the channels of the Spirit that calls them out.
Only one thing holds up the denominational system. God has some people He wants to get out of there first; then it will collapse. According to Revelation 18:19, Babylon will come down in one hour. We know that is a symbolic term, for the book of Revelation contains a great deal of symbolism; it means that she will come down in a very short period of time. Verse 20 says that the apostles and prophets will rejoice because God has judged their judgments upon her. Babylon is both religious and commercial, but all of it is going to come down—all of it!