Copyright
© 2019 Michael A. Brown
‘Do
not put out the Spirit’s fire.’
(1 Thess. 5:19)
‘For
our God is a consuming fire.’
(Heb. 12:26)
THERE are various motifs used in
Scripture to describe the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit’s working in
our lives. Along with the motifs of a
dove, a running stream of fresh water and a moving breeze of air, the motif of
fire is also used.
For example, when God called Moses, he
appeared to him from within a burning bush:
‘There
the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.’ (Ex. 3:2)
When Isaiah experienced his vision and
call to prophetic ministry, he initially became inwardly conscious of his own
uncleanness, but God cleansed him and purged away his sin by touching his mouth
with fire:
‘Then one of the seraphs 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.’ (Isa. 6:5-7)
Sacrifices in the Tabernacle were always
consumed by fire, and there were some particular occasions when the fire of God
fell from heaven on a sacrifice and burnt it up, signifying God’s affirmation
of the sacrifice:
‘At
the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed... Then the fire of God fell and burned up the
sacrifice...’ (1
Ki. 18:36,38)
‘When
Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt
offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple.’ (2 Chr. 7:1)
Our God is a consuming fire and his free,
dynamic presence in a believer’s life is therefore characterised by burning
fire. The seven-fold Spirit of God is
described in the book of Revelation as ‘seven blazing lamps’ (Rev. 4:5). John the Baptist said that Jesus would
baptize believers with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Matt. 3:11), and the
early believers experienced the fulfilment of this promise on the Day of
Pentecost when they were all filled with the presence and fire of the Holy
Spirit:
‘They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that
separated and came to rest on each of them.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other
tongues as the Spirit enabled them.’
(Acts 2:3-4)
We
need the fire of God in our hearts
The
fire of the Holy Spirit keeps our hearts passionate for God. The apostle Paul exhorted the Thessalonian
believers not to quench or put out the fire of the Holy Spirit which was within
them (1 Thess. 5:19). It is the fire of
God’s presence which keeps our hearts warm with passion for the things of God
and keeps us near him, filled with prayer, praise and worship. It purifies us and burns up the dross of sin
within. But spiritual laziness and
indolence, lack of quality time spent in intimacy with God, allowing ourselves
to be distracted by the things of the world, unresolved hurts, disobedience towards
God, not keeping short accounts with God regarding sin or wrong attitudes in
our lives, and over-activity in ministry, are all things which douse his fire
within us and cause it to die down or even die out altogether. As a consequence our hearts become cold
towards him and we inevitably begin to wander and drift away from our walk with
God. However,
‘God wants warm-hearted
servants. The Holy Spirit comes as a
fire, to dwell in us; we are to be baptized, with the Holy Spirit and with
fire. Fervency is warmth of soul. A phlegmatic temperament is abhorrent to
vital experience. If our religion does
not set us on fire, it is because we have frozen hearts. God dwells in a flame; the Holy Spirit
descends in fire. To be absorbed in
God’s will, to be so greatly in earnest about doing it that our whole being
takes fire, is the qualifying condition of the man who would engage in
effectual prayer.’[1]
The
fire of God makes our ministries powerful and effective. A while ago my wife laid hands on a woman who
was seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit and, as the Holy Spirit came upon
and filled her, she started to walk around as though she was drunk. She could not stand up or walk properly for
some time. A few days later, she
testified that, during the night following this experience, she woke up in bed
feeling the fire and heat of God’s presence all over her body. Her life was turned upside-down and
afterwards she was truly ‘on fire’ for God, witnessing to almost everybody she
met and praying constantly!
Sometimes, when we lay hands on people and
pray for physical healing they testify to feeling heat in the part of their
body which is afflicted and they are healed.
This is the power of God working within them like fire to bring healing
to them.
God’s living prophetic word in our
hearts is like a fire,
so preachers in particular need the fire of the word of God in
their hearts as they preach:
‘If I say, “I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,” his word is like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I
cannot.’ (Jer. 20:9)
“‘Is not my word like fire?”,
declares the LORD.’ (Jer. 23:29)
When
a preacher’s heart is truly filled with the word of God, s/he will be on fire
for God. Believers whose hearts are
right with God will recognize and feel its warmth when they hear him/her
preach. They will love it and will want
to come back to hear him/her again.
What’s more, their own hearts will be touched by this fire and they will
be filled with renewed faith and resolve.
Believers do not come to church to hear cold-hearted preaching! The fire in our hearts spreads into their hearts
and sets them on fire too, just as fire ignites and spreads as warm or hot
embers come into contact with each other in the hearth.
In
reference to his own messages, John Wesley said that he would first set himself
on fire and then invite people to come to hear and watch him burn! He used to tell his Methodist preachers to either
put fire in their sermons or else throw their sermons in the fire! Another old preacher once said that his
method of preparing himself for preaching was very simple: he would get himself
alone, he would confess himself clean, he would read himself up, he would pray
himself hot, and then he would let himself go!
Samuel Brengle similarly summed up his own method in the following
words:
‘I
prepare my sermons for others by preparing my own heart. In this, prayer and Bible study are the chief
factors… Many make the mistake of giving
more time to the preparation of their addresses than to the preparation of
their own hearts, affections, emotions, and faith; the result often is
beautiful, brilliant words that have the same effect as holding up glittering
icicles before a freezing man. To warm
others – and is not that your purpose in preaching? – a man must keep the fire
burning hot in his own soul.’[2]
Consecrate your life to God and ask him to fill you with his
fire
When
we ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit, we should expect to be filled with
the fire of God. We are not filled
with the Holy Spirit merely so that we can feel the presence of God with us and
yet continue to live un-surrendered, self-centred and comfort-oriented
lives. No, the Holy Spirit is a Person
and he comes upon us and fills us with the specific intention of birthing and
bringing about the fulfilment of God’s particular purposes for our lives. He possesses us for purpose, to initiate and
fulfil the particular vision which God has for our lives.
This is why Paul exhorted the believers in
Rome to present their bodies as living sacrifices to God, in order that they
might then know and experience the good, pleasing and perfect will of God for
their lives (Rom. 12:1-2). To be
filled with God is to be filled with his consuming fire. When we present ourselves to him as living
sacrifices, the fire of God can fall on and consume this sacrifice: the Holy
Spirit can fill and possess us, and he can then begin to work out his
particular call and purposes for our lives.
When God develops in our heart a specific
vision for his work, his presence burns within us with a burden and desire to
see this vision fulfilled. As this
develops and grows, it becomes an all-consuming passion within us which eats us
up day and night. It is like a fire in
our hearts. We think the vision, we talk
about and share the vision with others, we dream the vision, we eat and drink
the vision, as it were, and, above all, there is an inner spiritual compulsion
which brings us regularly and often to our knees to cry out to God in prayer
for the fulfilment of this vision. We
live for its fulfilment, consecrating our lives, our time, our energies and
often our financial resources to it, and we have the joy and blessing of seeing
God working and building his kingdom through us.
God is crying out to raise up men and
women who are willing and ready to become so filled and possessed by the Holy
Spirit, that they will be drawn to the presence of God in prayer day and night,
carrying within themselves the burden and fire of his purposes. It is this kind of inner, consuming fire that
characterises people who are used powerfully and fruitfully by God.
For example, after his surrender and
filling with the Holy Spirit in 1904, Evan Roberts said that, ‘Henceforth the
salvation of souls became the burden of my heart. From that time I was on fire with a desire to
go through all Wales, and, if it were possible, I was willing to pay God for
allowing me to go.’[3]
Similarly, it was written by a co-worker
of an occasion in John Hyde’s life that ‘He missed many meals, and when I went
to his room I would find him lying as in great agony, or walking up and down as
if an inward fire were burning in his bones,’[4]
and, of a later stage in his ministry, ‘...his figure was almost transformed as
he gave forth God’s own words to his people with such fire and such force that
many people hardly recognised the changed man with the glory of God lighting up
every feature.’[5]
When I was a student at the Bible College
of Wales, we often used to come out from our lunch-times to see our Principal,
Rev. Samuel R. Howells pacing up and down along the veranda of Derwen Fawr
house, deep in prayer. He did not
usually eat much for lunch and often spent that time of day seeking God in prayer. Judging by his demeanour as he paced up and
down, he invariably seemed to be filled with the fire of the spiritual burden
he was carrying. And whenever he
ministered the word of God to us in the evening, we could always feel the fire
of God in his heart as he spoke.
Leonard
Ravenhill said the following of himself on one occasion:
‘I've had something
burning in me for years and it burns more fiercely than ever to write this book
(on the Judgment Seat of Christ). There
are times (when) I can't go in my office. I'm awed with the awesomeness of God and the
task that we're right on the verge of tremendous judgment unless we have a
tremendous, tremendous, earth-quaking revival. I know people say, “Why don't you pray and ask
God to take it (the burning) away?” I've
prayed for 60 years to get it! I'm not
going to ask Him to take it away! I'm
asking Him to deepen it! I'm asking Him
to intensify it!’[6]
Of course, we may or may not be used by
God like these people above. God’s plan
and the ways in which he uses people are always individually tailored to them
according to the particular call on their lives and their gifting. However, although we are all different as
individuals, and although generations and cultures do change, yet God’s ways
don’t. God uses people who have
resolved within themselves that they will walk consistently and closely with
him in consecrated surrender and
whose hearts are filled with the presence and fire of his Spirit. So
we all need to be ready to learn the same kind of lessons and walk similar
paths to those who went before us, with the
same underlying spiritual dynamics of personal consecration, surrender,
obedience, prayer and faith operating in our own lives too.
So what about you, my friend? Is your heart still burning hot for the
things of God, or have you lost your fire?
Is your heart cold? Do you feel
far from his presence? Have the issues
of daily life and the distractions of the world come into your life in such a
way that the things of God seem to have been pushed aside? Have you lost your sense of vision? Then draw aside and spend some time quietly
thinking and mulling over the causes of these things in your life. Confess your failures to God and repent from
the causes of your spiritual coldness.
Get back to God once again, determine to walk closely with him, and
resolve to live a consecrated life. Ask
him to fill you once again with his presence, fire and passion, and to renew
your vision.
It
is the person who abides consistently in the presence of God who is
consistently on fire for the things of God.
We only have one life to live in this world, and it really is not worth
living without the close presence of God animating and anointing our hearts and
lives. As far as eternity is concerned,
everything else is ultimately worthless.
So live for God and for the things of his kingdom! Be filled once again with the fire of God in
your heart! There is no reason why you
cannot live with the joy of seeing God using you once more. Resolve that in your own life you will burn
on until the very end of your journey, rather than rusting out in some
forgotten place somewhere along the way!
[1] Bounds. E.M. Holy
Spirit Fire, details unknown.
[2] Quoted in Clinton, J.R. Focused Lives, Chapter 4, Altadena:
Barnabas Publishers, 1995, p.152.
[4] Carré, E.G. Praying Hyde, South Plainfield: Bridge Publishing, 1982, p.27.
[5] ibid., p.38.
[6] https://www.gospeltruth.net/ravenhill.htm,
accessed 19.08.2019.
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