When God’s Fire Falls
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns-xDm9cgSE
John Whitehead, president, and founder of the Rutherford Institute said, “If there isn’t a revival in this country of some sort … we’re moving toward a state that would be very much like pagan Rome.”
There’s a generally accepted truth that says if people were left to their own devices and free to choose their own course for life, then they would go from bad to worse, that is, unless this tendency is reversed by God’s grace.
We see this outcome in the Bible where it says in the book of Judges when things were good; the Jewish people started to do what was right in their own eyes, and in the process left God’s word and ways behind. As a result, they soon found themselves oppressed and in dire straits. They then cried out to God who then delivered them. And this happened time and time again.
You see, God in no way desires for His people to stay in a state of moral decay, and as a result live under His divine judgment. So, God delivers His people, He sends down holy fire, or what some have described as revival.
“Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us … Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?” (Psalm 85:4, 6 NIV)
Fire throughout the Bible is a symbol of God’s presence, power, and purity. In fact, the Bible speaks of the need of God’s people to purify themselves by the fire of God’s word and Spirit. So, it’s not without significance that the words for ‘purify’ and ‘purge’ in the Greek come out of the Greek word for fire.
And so, we as God’s people need to pray for God’s fire to fall, we need to pray for revival fire much the same as the prophet Isaiah called out for.
“Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! That the mountains might shake at Your presence. As fire burns brushwood, as fire causes water to boil -- To make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence.” (Isaiah 64:1-2 NKJV)
It is in such days of revival that God’s fire comes down as He manifests His presence, which is when we realize God’s power and greatness, and our own unworthiness and complete dependence upon God. And it is in these times of revival that God accomplishes more in hours and days than what the church has accomplished in years.
What we need to understand is that it’s God’s nature to bless, and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit is one of God’s greatest blessings. Such revivals have continued to dot the spiritual landscape of the church’s history and have been described as an experience of spiritual refreshment along with new manifestations of God’s grace and power. Some have even described it as God’s spiritual fire touching down like a powerful tornado of blessings.
In these cases, these divine manifestations have been marked by an unusually widespread awareness of God’s presence, mercy, grace, and power, changing people’s lives. Listen to some of these accounts from those who were there.
In 1825 through 1826, revival fire swept through central New York, mainly through the preaching of Charles Finney. Finney lists out these characteristics that were everywhere.
· The prevalence of a mighty Spirit of prevailing prayer
· Overwhelming conviction of sin
· Sudden and powerful conversions to Christ
· Great love and abounding joy of the converts
· Intelligence and stability of the converts
· Great earnestness, activity, and usefulness in prayer and labor for others
In the early 1900’s the country of Wales experienced a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit as Evan Roberts taught the people to pray, “Send the Holy Spirit now, for Jesus Christ sake.” Roberts emphasized these four points.
· Confess openly and fully any unconfessed sin
· Put away from your life anything doubtful
· Obey promptly anything the Spirit tells you to say and do
· Confess Christ openly
And through this great time of revival Roberts noticed these three things
· Enormous congregations
· Unity between denominations
· The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
And while revivals are a sovereign work of God, there is one thing that marks them all, and that is obedience on the part of God’s people to His word.
God is eager to come down with the firepower of His grace to meet our heart’s desire. And so, the question is, “Are we really hungry for a revival? Are we willing to prepare the way for a revival through obedience to God’s Word?” And do we really want to experience what the first church continued to experience, “Time of refreshing from the Lord” (Acts 3:19).
We see such revival accounts in the Bible, like when Elijah challenged the people saying, “The God who answers by fire, He is God.” (1 Kings 18:24b NKJV)
Elijah put this challenge forth at a crucial moment in the history of Israel. It was a moment that would decide the destiny of the nation.
Before we go any further into the story, let me say that it’s never too late for God to work on our behalf, no matter how bad things may be or seem to be. No situation is ever too hopeless, and no one can be so compromised, backslidden, and sinful that God cannot send a fresh new blessing of His holy fire.
Look at the days that face the people of Israel when Elijah uttered this challenge. Queen Jezebel and her husband, King Ahab had just about destroyed the worship of God. It says that Ahab did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those born before Him, and that he did more to provoke the Lord to anger than all the kings of Israel (1 Kings 16:30-33).
But it wasn’t too late for God to bring His people back from the brink!
For three years a great famine came upon the land. The Lord then brought Elijah to confront not only King Ahab, but also the prophets of Baal. They met on Mount Carmel where Elijah issued this challenge, “Build an alter to your god Baal, but put no fire underneath it. Then pray and ask Baal to light your fire. And I will build an alter to the Lord God and likewise put no fire underneath and pray. And the God who answers by fire, He’s the real deal, He’s the real God.”
After hours of prayers and self-abuse, on the part of his priests, Baal did not respond. Elijah then built and alter, put the sacrifice upon it, drenched it with so much water that it ran down and filled a trench that Elijah dug around it, and before he could get out the word, “Amen,” God sent down supernatural fire and burned up the water-soaked sacrifice, wood, stones, dirt, and the water in the trench.
Instantly the people fell on their faces and shouted, “The Lord is God! The Lord is God!” Well, Dah! This is the most instant revival ever recorded in history. What we see is God coming down by fire to show His power. After that, Elijah went and prayed for rain, and shortly thereafter the land received rain after three years of having none.
It was such a transforming fire that God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush.
“And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.” (Exodus 3:2 NKJV)
These flames that Moses saw were unlike any natural fire. They burned without destroying. And this is not without significance for us today. God’s fire in those He fully controls, those who are totally surrendered to Him, can continue to burn without fear of burning out. God’s fire will transform, but it will not consume.
Yes, God’s fire will consume the sinner, but for believers, it will consume the sin, not the sinner. God’s holy fire purifies believers and makes them what God originally intended. The Bible talks about God’s fire being like a refiner’s fire.
“He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.” (Malachi 3:3 NKJV)
To understand this refiner’s fire, refiners would literally sit over a pot of molten silver or gold. As the fire would get hotter the more impurities would rise to the top allowing the refiner to scoop them up. Finally, the refiner knew that the metal was as pure as it could get when he was able see his face reflected back in the molten metal.
God is such a refiner. He stokes the heat of affliction and tribulation underneath our lives, not to destroy us, but rather to purify. As He sees the impurities of our lives being released through confession and repentance, He takes them away. His whole purpose is to see the face of His Son, Jesus Christ, shining back through our lives.
Besides purifying, God’s presence is also manifested through His holy fire. It was such a manifestation that God revealed Himself on Mount Sinai when He gave Israel His Law. At God’s command Israel prepared itself, and then the whole mountain shook violently from the presence of the Lord as He descended, and the smoke that ascended from the Mount Sinai summit was like that of furnace.
“Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.” (Exodus 19:18 NKJV)
And from that time forward, God led Israel for 40 years in the wilderness through the fire of His presence, which came in the form of a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.
It was also the fire of God’s presence that filled the tabernacle there in the wilderness. It is recorded that when Moses left the tent of meeting that the glory of the Lord could literally be seen on his face as his face glowed as if it were on fire.
It was also in fire that the Lord dedicated the temple built by Solomon when all Israel saw God’s holy fire descend.
“When Solomon had 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 Chronicles 7:1 NKJV)
And it says that when the people saw the fire of God and His glory fill the temple, they fell face first and worshipped saying, “The Lord is good, and His mercy endures forever.”
Unfortunately, the people continued moving away from God’s word until the prophet Ezekiel saw the glory of God literally depart from the temple and from the city (Ezekiel 10:4, 18; 11:22-23). And the fire of God was not seen again until the establishment of the church, where the fire of God again descended and continues to descend today.
It happened just as John the Baptist prophesied, that Jesus would send the holy fire of God down and baptize the people with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Jesus Himself confirmed this very thing right before He ascended into heaven as He told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they were baptized with the Holy Spirit and are endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:5).
And so, the fire of the Lord descended upon those who were there waiting, and the church was formed.
As the disciples were waiting on the feast of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended in fire over the head of each one of them.
“Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:3-4 NKJV)
Now, I don’t want us to miss the significance of this event. In the Old Testament, God’s fire fell upon the temple to bless the nation as a whole. But now it descended not upon a place, but rather upon individual believers. And here’s the significance, that when a person comes to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit enters them, and they individually become the temple of the Holy Spirit.
“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19 NKJV)
And so, the fire of the Lord came upon each believer manifesting the purifying power of God’s presence. The fire of the Holy Spirit came and still comes upon the people of God, and upon the church to cleanse, empower, fill, enlighten, and reflect God’s holiness and radiance to a lost and dying world.
Let me share with you a story of a revival that swept through India. It began in a girls’ center. An evangelist had been teaching about the Holy Spirit, and as the girls were praying, suddenly a fire flamed around one of them. So taken by the sight one girl ran to get a bucket of water and was ready to dose her when she realized that this wasn’t a literal fire.
The girl that was now engulfed in this holy flame told them how the Holy Spirit had filled her, and she exhorted them to repent. She prayed, “O Lord, I am full of joy, but forgive and cleanse my sisters as you have me … O Lord, we must have revival … begin it today.”
God answered her prayer and revival broke out as they were filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and experienced a sensation of a holy burning. Everyone saw it in their faces as it looked as if they were lit with a heavenly light. They then took the gospel everywhere and revival swept across India.
Let me conclude by saying this. We need to seek more and more the presence of God, along with a greater awareness of His holiness, and a deeper experience of His mercy, grace, love, and forgiveness.
How can we do this?
1. Determine the Lord is our God
The writer of Hebrews defines the type of faith we need to please God, and then see God move in our lives as He moved in the lives of those in times past.
Look at what he said.
“Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6 NKJV)
2. Determine to Serve the Lord
We need determination to take down the false gods we’ve set up in our lives. Determine to love God with the whole of who we are, and then others as ourselves. And then determine to live out God’s word before others and go make disciples.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1 NKJV)
3. Determine to be Baptized and Filled with the Holy Spirit
Let me just say that we’re never going to see God move in our lives, in our families, workplaces, church, community, or nation until we weep and pray and seriously desire God’s baptism of fire to fall upon us and to fill us with His presence, power, and to purify us for His service.
And we don’t have to look far in our own lives, the church, and in our nation to see how far we’ve fallen from God’s holy and righteous standards for life. But now hear God’s promise.
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV)
And so, let’s start calling out to God today to revive us.
But thinking about being revived, I remember one thing I read years ago from an old-time pastor. He said that we can’t be revived until we’ve first been “vived.” And this starts with and through belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.
And so, whichever it is for you, whether you need to come into that personal saving relationship with Jesus Christ, or whether you need to come back into that relationship, or if you need that Baptism of the Holy Spirit, or to be refilled, what we need to do is pray and ask God to send His fire down upon us.
