Baptism of Fire
John the Baptist declares that Jesus will baptise with the Holy Spirit AND fire. Baptism in the Holy Spirit empowers us for witnessing and for ministry. Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.””
However, we must also have a Baptism of fire which is one of cleansing, refining and empowering.
I am reading a book called ‘Preparing for Revival’ and the author writes, ‘ In the lives of the revivalists I have read about, there is a common theme that I have sought to understand. Many of them have gone from one level of power to another, taking them from being ordinary ministers to revivalists. It is my belief, continues the author, that they experienced the baptism of fire.
Should it be part of baptism in the Holy Spirit, absolutely yes but very often it is not because baptism of fire is more than speaking in tongues, more than the gifts of the Holy Spirit it is a fire that sanctifies us. Sanctification is the process of being set apart and transformed into holiness, becoming more like Jesus Christ. It is a continuous, lifelong work of the Holy Spirit following justification, ( justification happens when you accept Jesus Christ as Saviour of your life, and Jesus took our sin upon Himself and forgives us of our sin) . Justification simply put is , just as if I had never sinned.
There are three Phases of sanctification:
1. Positional Sanctification (Justification): A one-time act where you as a believer is set apart as holy in Christ the moment you believe.
2. Progressive Sanctification (Growth in Grace): An ongoing, present process where the Holy Spirit works to transform your character, enabling you to overcome sin and grow in righteousness. It is a continuous transformation of heart, mind, and behaviour to turn from sin towards righteousness.
3. Ultimate Sanctification (Glorification): The final, perfect, and complete state of holiness in both body and soul, which occurs in heaven.
The baptism of fire is needed for progressive sanctification and growth in grace as it is the baptism of fire that purges and refines us. It is a life changing experience as the dross in our life is burned up and as a consequence you are able to access more of the power of God.
1. CLEANSES AND PURGES US -
Isaiah is a prime example, In Isaiah 6:1-8 “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, ... one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
The seraphim are ‘fire’ angels and after this experience Isaiah was sanctified, so God was able to commission Him (send him) and use him in a greater way and this is exactly what happened to the revivalists.
One of the early Welsh revivalists, W S Jones, while at Carmarthen had a powerful experience of baptism with fire, this is what he wrote in his diary for March 1900, ‘Suddenly there came to me an indelible consciousness of the amazing holiness of God. Like a purifying fire- like a fiery river flowing out of the throne - and I in the midst as if reclining on it. I do not know whether it was in the body or out of it but the fire percolated (to pass through) through my whole nature. I remember the thought which gripped me - ‘the holiness of God, I am still alive in the midst of the stream, and I cannot die here. When I recovered consciousness of my earthly surroundings I was amazed to find that the pain which for years I had been enduring had vanished. That night I slept like a healthy little child.’
After this baptism of fire experience, W S Jones ministry from that point on had a greater impact on his own church as he had been cleansed, ready, expectant and so became the channel by which the refreshing waters of revival began to flow....
Are we willing for the baptism of fire to cleanse and purge us like Isaiah and like the revivalist W S Jones?
Duncan Campbell another revivalist said that his baptism of fire came after he had such a spiritual hunger and a longing for God to do something?
Do we have a spiritual hunger and a longing for God to do something? Psalm 139 :23 says, “... search me O God and know my heart”.
Are we willing for the fire to burn up the dross in us ? In Malachi 3:2, “For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.” It is a burning to cleanse.
1 Peter 1:6-7, “In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Fire refines gold by burning away dross, —a process known as smelting —melts impure raw gold at temperatures up to \(1,093 C)(2,000{F}\)). The intense heat liquefies the metal, allowing hidden impurities like iron, lead, and zinc to oxidise, rise to the surface as slag, and be skimmed off, leaving pure gold behind.
Baptism of fire therefore removes the impurities in our lives burning away sinful habits, selfishness, and worldly corruption and sometimes God has to turn up the heat and we don’t like it but it is for our good so that we become more useful and powerful for the Lord to use us. Look at Joseph in the Old Testament, he had powerful dreams about his family, but being one of the youngest his dreams were rejected, and because of jealousy by his brothers he was thrown into a pit and sold as a slave. Then slave owners wife (Potiphar’s wife) accused him of making advances to her, Joseph was not guilty but thrown into prison. Things appeared to be getting worse not better Why? Because he was being refined, God was getting him ready for a greater purpose and that was to be the Prime Minister of Egypt, second in command to Pharaoh. While in prison he interpreted dreams which came to pass but he got forgotten about for another two years (more refining) until Pharaoh had dreams then Joseph was remembered, and they brought him to Pharaoh, Joseph spoke with great wisdom, interpreting the dreams AND giving the solution (it is one thing to see the problem, it is another to know how to solve it with the wisdom of God) As a result, Joseph was made Prime Minister, he saved a nation from famine and saved his whole family.
But, he had to go through the fiery trials of rejection, the trials of being misunderstood and forgotten about. Joseph came through it all because he trusted God and the plans of God for his life. Many of you have been chosen by God, from when you were in your mother’s womb and maybe like Joseph and all those who were mightily used of God in the Bible, have had to go through and will continue to go through many trials to be refined by the fire, but at the end you will come forth as gold and reach your destiny in God to be mightily used of him but we all must continue to develop our relationship with him and never be satisfied with what we already have. There is more!
2. Baptism of fire is connected to the harvest
Like 3:17 “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Here John the Baptist is saying that after the refining there is a connection with bringing in the harvest. - in other words revival.
The revivalists mentioned (and there are many more) had all experienced this baptism of fire and after being refined by the fire they received from the Holy Spirit authority and power and went out to bring in the harvest.
John Harper a Scottish Pastor who also experienced the power of the Holy Spirit and baptism of fire - had a church of 25 members which grew to 550 within four years. In 1901 after five months it grew to over 1,000 believing in Jesus with over 230 joining the fellowship.
One witness of his meetings said this, that the meetings were ‘more like a battlefield than anything else. Saints sobbing on account of their unwillingness to be more like Christ and poor lost sinners crying out for mercy under the mighty power of God. It was not excitement, it was the Holy Spirit convicting of sin’. Whole families underwent a change.
You maybe saying well that was good for then but what about now - if we know our Kingdom identity, that we are in Christ and if we are willing to pursue a relationship with God, we can still have the same hunger and desire but it costs us to put aside distractions and partner with God in prayer.
In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit physically descended upon the disciples in the form of "tongues of fire,"empowering them for boldness and ministry. In one day 3,000 believed in the Lord, healing miracles happened throughout the book of Acts, deliverances from demons took place, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength comes first before the power. It’s not about us but Him.
In conclusion, are we willing to surrender our thoughts, our speaking, our actions to Him and let the fire burn the dross within. No matter, how long we have been born again Christians, there are still impurities within us that need to be dealt with. Those of us who are Christians, do we need deliverance, I would say yes, because we need deliverance from ourselves, deliverance from I, me, my, mine, and it’s an every day deliverance because the enemy likes to sit on our shoulder and taunt us.
May we all experience the baptism of fire as well as the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Many blessings,
Pastor Sandra
