Fire Or Funeral

Luke 3:16: “John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water (he did not deceive them), but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”

In this scripture, we see three baptisms:

1. By water,

2. By the Holy Ghost and,

3. By Fire.

According to the Bible, there were daily sacrifices. And during some of these sacrifices, fire came down. Sometimes the priests at the altar were confused too. Believers have to search for and gather sufficient fire of God into their spirit man to cope with the amount of wickedness that is going on now. The spiritual environment has changed completely from what it used to be. Now some people may confront you and say, “Look, I have met the devil. Whom have you met?” If a man should confront you and say that he has met the devil, and you have not met the living God, you better beware. I am not talking about going to church. The matter is beyond that.

Many people go to church, but the church does not go inside of them. “I am a deaconess. I am a pastor.” But what they really need is to be generators of God’s power so that when the powers of darkness confront them and say, “We are coming from the devil,” they will tell them, “We are from the living God.” What I am saying is that for the lower forces to bow before you, something has to happen inside of you.

Beloved, the amount of power that many of us carry about now is not enough to resist the powers of darkness around us. There is so much darkness around now. Men and women are going into dark places. The kind of Christians that confront them are not disco Christians. Often we pray, “Anointing fall. Power and fire fall.” But how many of us are receiving the anointing and the fire. We have all the choruses well lined out: “Holy Ghost and fire, God of Elijah send down the fire.” But how many of us really have the fire.

A dangerous trend is happening now and if believers of this generation do not receive fire, the alternative is funeral. The enemy has gone very far in many lives. While many of us are still in primary one the enemy has entered the university. In Africa, a native doctor does not call a demon he does not understand, because he knows that to do so it can cause a serious problem for him. I know somebody who landed in a psychiatric hospital, after reading the 6th and 7th Books of Moses. He called the spirit that he did not understand and the spirit dealt with him terribly. The native doctor is sensible. He knows that if you do not understand something, you should not call it. If you call it and it comes out, you are in trouble.

Many Christians do not understand that they need some conditions to bring God’s fire down.

We need that fire. It is compulsory and necessary. But many of us do not want to fulfill the condition. The Bible says that whenever the apostles moved they carried fire with them. They were given serious stripes of cane. The Bible says that whenever they were given serious beating, they rejoiced. Something was in them that many of us do not have. These men got to a level in their Christian life that people looked at them and said, “These are unlettered men.” Yet they wondered at their boldness and accused them of turning the world upside down. Wherever they went, there were some concerns because they caused holy trouble and tension.

Beloved, when the fire comes upon you, some people will be concerned that you are somewhere. Some people will be worried that you have arrived. Some people will know that you have come to create problem for them. As a Christian, people should know you for who you are. They should know the kind of invitation they would give you. They should know the kind of food they would not serve you. They know where to run to when they have trouble.

Everywhere you go, you have to be a fire generator. What is your own testimony? Five or ten years in Christianity, are you still looking for prophets or prophetesses to pray for you? What is your testimony? The God that is speaking to those prophets, why is He not talking to you? What have you done wrong? Why has God abandoned you and the issue of your life and you now run after prophets? What has happened to the prophet God has planted within you? We need that fire. Without it there would be funeral. I am warning you now. The way things are going now, Christians who do not get on fire, their enemy will quickly kill them before their time and they will not know. The enemy can start with a little boil and you will not know what to do and that is it. I want you to understand these things.