Fire

10 September 2017

Dear Phyllis,

This is nothing new but last week the Lord reminded me again of the importance of fire. It is not without significance that we see the order of the message God has given us in His Word. In Genesis we see the men of the family God has chosen to be His people – Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. In Exodus we see God drawing His people out of Egypt and establishing His tabernacle to dwell among them. Then the next thing we see in Leviticus is instruction concerning offerings.

My goodness, if this isn't the first message to give to those who choose to follow the Lord, what is? Another word for offering is sacrifice. Somehow this seems to be a silent word in Christianity in America today. Let's hear some preaching on sacrifice. How in the world these idiots (That isn't the right word. They are false prophets) of the champions of the prosperity gospel (?) came up with that message is a mystery to me. They certainly didn't get it from the Bible. The prosperity gospel is the perfect antithesis of the central message of the Bible. Jesus never taught it. Jesus' message was to give up all, take up a cross and follow Him. Where do you get prosperity in that? The Jesus Family in China had a motto of five words – sacrifice, abandonment, poverty, suffering, and death. If this is what you were after you were welcome to join them. If not, please don't apply for membership. And they were the genesis of the present day Back to Jerusalem Movement. Maybe I missed it, somehow but it looks to me like the word of the Lord teaches, is not what can I get out of it but what can I give to Jesus. If offerings and sacrifices are not the foundational message of the Bible what is?

In the OT every time a man met with God it was at an altar. If we would have more encounters with God perhaps there should be more altars in our life. But if there was a sacrifice laid on the altar there was one more element that was necessary – fire. A phrase that was repeated over and over in the initial chapters of Leviticus was “it is an offering made by fire, a sweet savour unto the Lord.” If the offering is to be a sweet savour unto the Lord it must have fire. Any offering laid on the altar is just dead meat until it is consumed by fire. Fire less altars attract more flies than the blessing of God. If want our lives to be a sweet savoir to God the one essential element is fire – and that falls on altars not Christmas trees. I believe the Holy Spirit is more interested in anointing a sacrifice than getting a new bicycle for Christmas.

I'm sure I wrote to you before about my series of messages on the seven Spirits of God in Revelation (Rev. 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, 6). That was one of the most enlightening series I ever preached. One of the points that I got from it was a strong conviction that one of the seven Spirits of God is the Spirit of Fire. There is a tremendous amount of material in all the Bible to substantiate that point, but one is what John said about Jesus that he would “baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire”. And when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost He came on the believers as tongues of fire. If there is one attribute that is universal to anyone filled with the Holy Spirit is they are “on fire for God”. Jesus said of John that “he was a burning and a shinning light” (Jn. 5:35).

The Holy Spirit is the one indispensable element that we need in our lives. Take the Holy Spirit out of our lives all we will have is dead orthodoxy. There is no heat in that. One of the primary effects of heat is that it will melt ice. DL Moody said of his experience listening to Henry Moorhouse preach on John 3:16; “As I sat there listening the iceberg in my heart began to melt”. The other night I was listening to a number of excellent testimonies of salvation on You Tube. The temperament of these believers varied considerably but, when they got to the point where Jesus came into their heart, without exception, everyone broke down and wept. My own experience in preaching, when I feel the Holy Spirit coming on me strongly tears begin to flow. In fellowshipping with friends a consistent phenomenon is, when the Holy Spirit moves tears flow. Peter Xu's Born-again house church group in China - of which there were 6, 000, 000 Christians – they were known as the weepers. Those critical of this group falsely claimed that they insisted all believers must weep. Peter Xu denied this accusation, but it certainly is understandable why their enemies would think so. There was so much of the Holy Spirit in their meetings it would be difficult not to weep. In my opinion, anyone who claims to be filled with the Holy Spirit and does not break into tears when they talk about Jesus is questionable. I remember attending Kichijoi meetings in Kobe where, for one year, I never was in a meeting where you couldn't look around the room and see tears trickling down cheeks. Melting ice certainly is one of the evidences of heat.

I was in a prayer meeting a couple years ago where a young girl showed up that I had never seen before. Consistently, every week those meetings were really dead prayer meetings but, my goodness, did we have church that night! What a phenomenon! That girl was absolutely dominant. Seldom had I heard prayer like that. I was tremendously curious about this unusual girl and spoke to her at the end of the meeting. I asked, “Where are you from?” She replied, “I'm Chinese.” “Okay, now I understand.” The heat coming of that girl was tremendous. If I ever saw a person who was on fire for God it was that young lady.

But there can be an enthusiasm that is just natural temperament. Just because someone is excited and all over the place is not necessarily an evidence of the Holy Spirit. Of the many conference speakers I heard in Karuizawa the two men that I would rate as the most Spirit filled men were two of the most low keyed. One was JB Friends from South Africa. Brother Friends was one of the weakest men I ever met. Shaking hands with him was like picking up a dead fish. He looked like, if you said “boo!”, he would jump out of his skin. But when he stood to preach I feared he would tare the pulpit apart. How the power of God would come down on his message. More than any man I ever met the Holy Spirit came through him unfiltered. The Lord was so clear because, as a natural man, there was no one else there. The second most impressive speaker was Bob Smith of Bethel college. He was so unimpressive and dull, when he began a message you would look at your watch and wonder, “How long do I have to endure this?” An hour later you would look at your watch again and wonder, “What happened?” Bob Smith would drone on in almost a monotone and yet his message was so gripping you would forget where you were. Again, the only thing you could say was this was the Holy Spirit.

The point is this; if we are serious about walking with and serving Jesus, the question we must ask ourselves is, what is the altar in my life? What am I sacrificing for Jesus? And to what degree is the fire of God burning in my heart? It takes the fire to convert the solid state of meat of the sacrifice into the gaseous state of smoke. And it takes the Holy Spirit to convert the natural things we offer Him into spiritual realities. And where that happens there is the sweet savour unto the Lord.

Lord Jesus, help us to make this real,

                                                    bill