We need to observe the manner whereby God moves. On the day of Pentecost, tongues of fire settled upon one hundred and twenty believers. This was the fire that had been prophesied by John the Baptist when he said, “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16). The fire was more than just a little symbolic flash that settled upon their heads; it was a beautiful work of the grace of God that made the fullness of the Holy Spirit operative.
It is the Holy Spirit, and not just our own spirit, that is warring against our flesh. It is the Holy Spirit operating through our quickened spirit, when we were in the world our spirit was not warring against our flesh. Our spirit was already deadened and consenting to the flesh. We were dead in trespasses and sins, so nothing was operative there.
God moves through the Holy Spirit to bring an end to that conflict. However, when the Holy Spirit comes into an individual, it does not necessarily mean that this conflict is over. Many people who have received the Holy Spirit and spoken in tongues are not free from the flesh; they still find the warfare going on in their lives.
I Corinthians illustrates the fact that a person can receive the Holy Spirit and move in the gifts and still find the coexistence of a strong, vigorous flesh life that continually nullifies everything he does. Paul wrote that the Corinthians were behind in no gift, with all utterance and all knowledge, waiting for the coming of the Lord. And yet in chapter after chapter throughout this Epistle, you find the evidence of a very fleshly life existing in the Corinthian church. That is why John the Baptist preached about God doing something to the old nature while He was filling people with His Spirit. While baptizing them in the Holy Spirit, God also intended to baptize them with fire.
This is what is described in the second chapter of Acts. When we read John’s prophecy in the third chapter of Luke, we understand better why tongues of fire were in evidence when the believers received the Holy Spirit. The spiritual fire is an integral part of a walk in the Spirit today.
The fire destroys that which is feeding the old disposition and the carnal nature in our life. We deal with the basic source of our trouble by putting an axe to the root.
The baptism of fire will deal with the mountains, the valleys, and the crooked roads that plague the life of the believer and make them so ineffective that it requires many years to travel a short distance spiritually. Have you known those deep valleys that make it difficult to reach the beautiful view of the mountains? Let the Holy Spirit eliminate the ups and downs in your life.
The illustrations of laying an axe to the root of a tree, of threshing the wheat from the chaff and then burning the chaff, are very important. They refer to the Holy Spirit and fire that is to complete the work within our heart. God is a consuming fire. We need to throw ourselves into the fire. There is no other path into the Kingdom.
We have to go through the flaming sword that guards the way into Eden
We will be ready to enter the wedding if we purify ourselves and go through the work of the cross; dying out to everything that God wants us to die out to.
Hebrews 12 speaks about the Lord’s coming and the end-time events. Verse 14 says that without holiness no man is going to see the Lord. This refers to seeing Him when He breaks through. What we must do to prepare the way of the Lord and make His paths straight, see that the axe is laid to the root of whatever is feeding our life the wrong thing. We need to get the chaff separated from the wheat.
There are many things that are natural to us. They have been with us from the time we were born. When a little baby does not get what he wants, he begins to cry, yelling and stiffening himself. His mother looks at him and says, “Just like his father.” She can see the stubborn nature that has been born in him. When a young boy is about ten or twelve years old and is getting out of line, Dad looks at him, somewhat amused, and says, “Hmm. Chip off the old block. I have to do something about this.” Taking the boy out to the woodshed, he tries to beat out of him what he has bred into him, hoping to stop the course of the old nature. There is a better way. The baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire can be like an axe being laid to the root of negative things that are growing in our life.
Too many people have become Christians only to find that many things are still smoldering beneath the surface, and they need help. What can we do to change? Be baptized by fire. Welcome it. God gives us an option. We can run away from it if we want to. That is why many people who start to walk with God leave the minute they see the fire, the chastening, and the discipline that will be in their lives.
Do we want to be a vessel of honor in the house of God? Do we want to be a prophet and prophesy the Word of the Lord? What a glorious prospect is before us. The Lord says, “Fine, son. I will make a prophet. I will make you my bond-servant.” He takes us to the threshold of the door and rams a hole through our ear.
God is trying to do something in our life to bring us into our spiritual inheritance. A man can come to Gilgal and listen to a pep talk by the generals about how good it will be to take the land of Canaan; but they will never take it that way. Instead, he hears someone say, “All you women go back to the tents and all you men come on over here,” as he starts sharpening the knife.
“What are you going to do?”
“It is all right, son. I am going to seal you to the covenant of God’s people. You are to go in and inherit Canaan. But first you must be circumcised.”
“Will it hurt?”
“Of course it will hurt.”
The chaff and the circumcision speak of that which must be cut away because it surrounds and houses the new nature and all of its creativity that is needed to bring forth the will of God in the earth. We may protest, “You’re going to make me so that I won’t even look human anymore.”
“That is right. You are going to be made so that you will appear divine, and when people look at you, they will not see the chaff; they will see your circumcised heart; they will see Jesus.”
“Well, if that’s the case, bring on the knife, bring on the axe, and bring on the winnowing fork and the flail. If I have to, I have to.”
No, that is not the right attitude. Welcome it! To lose the old nature is not to create a vacuum. It is to embrace the body and the blood of the Lord and to receive His life as the complete source of our life. The work of the cross is necessary if we want to move into the new life.