A Baptism of Fire
Matthew 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
Luke 12:49-51 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! 51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
l. INTRODUCTION – FIRE
In a few short months, summer will be upon us. Although in our area of the United States we do not have to deal with a perplexity that sweeps through the western states and some of the northwestern states. That difficulty they have to deal with is forest fires. We have some the highest technology now to fight fires. Sometimes the blazes are started by careless campers who allow a wayward campfire to destroy thousands of acres. Sometimes it is a still lit cigarette that is the culprit. Or sometimes, as with last summer, the fires are started by absurd arsonists. However, more often than not the forest fires began with a summer thunderstorm and a lightning strike.
Once the fire gains the force of the winds behind it and the dry tinder in front of it, the fire starts to rage entirely out of control. Consuming whatever is in it’s path, dead trees, dry creek beds, even homes become prey to the blaze. As the forest rangers and firefighters began to struggle with the onslaught of the fire, everything possible to contain the fire is placed at their disposal. They start back-fires which burns areas before the main body of the fire can ravage it. The use of airplanes and helicopters that drop tons of chemicals and water on the blaze is used. Bulldozers and other heavy equipment become huge tools to extinguish the fires.
For years, public knowledge has been used with the Smoky the Bear ads to instruct and educate the public about forest fires. Much success has been gained in this particular area, but now researchers are having to reconsider all of the suppression and dousing of these forest fires. For what they are now discovering in the huge redwood forests, the giant conifers, the towering pines is not good.
For hundreds of years prior to our firefighting efforts, there was no control for forest fires. They simply raged out of control and burned everything in their path and was only consumed once they burnt out. These forest fires ravaged and destroyed the landscape until nothing was left to burn. Yet, now researchers are beginning to understand that perhaps there was something that was very productive in these huge forest fires that consumed thousands of acres.
Now that fires are being suppressed and controlled, the problem with beetles and blight on trees has soared. The fire has been put out but the disease on the trees has become magnified. The beetles and other bugs are now having a heyday among the leaves and soft, sweet timber. They are destroying the forest little by little. Forest rangers are having to resort to poisons that are either sprayed, spread, or powdered in the regions of contamination. Much to their chagrin, the poisons are not killing their pests, it appears that the forests are becoming sicker and sicker.
-I believe that both John the Baptist and the Lord were on to something when they promised the work of fire. Sometimes we Pentecostals want to focus in on the power of the Holy Ghost but not the power of the fire. Or even that our understanding of the baptism of fire is totally opposite of what God fully intended.
ll. THE TEXT – LUKE 12
(Moffatt’s) Luke 12:49-51 – “I have come to throw fire on earth. Would it were kindled already!” “I have a baptism to undergo–what tension I suffer, till it is all over!” “You think I am here to make peace on earth? No, I tell you, it is dissension.”
(The Message) Luke 12:49-51 – “I’ve come to start a fire on this earth–how I wish it were blazing right now!” “I’ve come to change everything, turn everything rightside up–how I long for it to be finished!” “Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I’ve come to disrupt and confront!”
(Amplified) Luke 12:49-51 – “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and how greatly and sorely I am urged on (impelled, constrained) until it is accomplished!” “Do you suppose that I have come to give peace upon earth? No, I say to you, but rather division;”
-To those who were learning to regard Jesus as the Messiah, the anointed One of God, these words came as a tremendous shock.
A. A Baptism of Fire
-In Jewish thought, fire is almost always associated as the symbol of judgment. The Jews firmly believed that God would judge other nations by one standard and themselves by another. It almost appears as if because a man were a Jew, then he would be absolved of any judgment in his life.
-No matter how much we may desire to remove the concepts of judgment from the message of Jesus it remains stubbornly and unalterably there.
-The Greek verb baptizein means “to dip.” In the passive sense is means to be submerged. To give a better picture of what this word means is to apply a metaphorical implication to it.
• It is used of a ship sunk beneath the waves.
• It can be used of a man submerged in drink and therefore dead-drunk.
• It can be used of a scholar submerged by an examiner’s questions.
• Above all it is used of a man submerged in some grim and terrible experience–someone who can say, “All the waves and billows are gone over me.”
-That is how Jesus uses it here. “I have a terrible experience through which I must pass; and life is full of tension until I pass through it and emerge triumphantly from it.” The Cross was ever before His eyes and how different the Jewish idea was of God’s plan.
B. The Power of Fire
-The Lord states that He came to the earth to bring something as new and strange and revolutionizing as fire. He is bringing something as beneficial to their souls as fire has been to their bodies. But fire hurts. . . . . . .
When I was five or six years old, CC, a kid who lived up the street from us managed to find an old mop. A fire that had been built to burn leaves and limbs had been set and he took that mop and managed to light the top of it. It was the neatest thing in the world to walk around with that torch burning. The problem was that it was his mop and his torch and therefore he wouldn’t let me play with it.
So with mind whirling, I determined to find me something to play with too! Little did I know that I was making a bad decision by finding an old metal strip. It was about two feet long and three inches wide. I took that metal and placed it in the fire so that I would have a torch. After staying in the fire for about five minutes, I pulled it out of the fire and it was so hot that I dropped it back on the ground. Half of that shaft of metal was so hot that it glowed.
We continued to play and forgot about the hot metal being on the ground, five minutes later, I found that hot piece of metal with my little barefoot. It literally cooked the bottom half of my foot. The pain associated with the burning from that hot metal is something that I have never forgotten. There was intense feeling involved. No amount of water, ice, or ointment applied to my foot could relieve the pain.
-Simply enough. . . . . . fire hurts.
-Yet we as saints want the baptism of the Holy Ghost. . . . . . . . and of fire. . . . . . . .
In 1665 London was in the grips of the terrible Black Plague, the horrors of which can still be read from the pages of history. The disease germs were hiding and breeding and multiplying everywhere. Every corner became a nest of contagion. Nothing would be found to displace it.
In the following year the Great Fire broke out, and the plague smitten city was possessed by the spirit of burning. London was literally baptized with fire. The fire sought out the most secret haunts of the contagion and in the fiery baptism the evil genius of corruption gave place to the sweet and friendly genius of health. Fire accomplished quite easily what water would have never accomplished.
-Fire is one of the most powerful symbols in human language. In it’s uncontrolled state it is an object of dread, but it still is the source of immense blessing to men. It becomes that agent of progress and change.
ll. THE FIRE AT THE CROSSROADS
-Every man comes to certain crossroads in his life where choices are made and embraced that forever marks him. Some of the choices are inconsequential but others, both the choice and the consequences of the choices that are made, follow us for the rest of our lives.
-The Lord was quite familiar with the fires of rejection, misunderstanding, betrayal, and pressure in His life. By the point of Luke 12, the Lord was squarely in what scholars have identified as the Year of Opposition.
-When we pursue the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire there is no logical way for us to take fire in our heart and not be burned. When the Holy Ghost comes to reside within a man there are hundreds of oppositions and contradictions to be found there:
• Unbelief struggling with the very faith of God.
• Worldliness battling with the apprehension of the worth of things we cannot see.
• Malice contending gentleness.
• Pride arguing with humbleness of mind.
• The spirit of a self-reliant man competing with a child-like spirit.
• Sin in its vast variety warring with purity and the love of God.
-Our heart is a field and we cannot suppose that the seed of holiness is going to spring up and grow in a human heart without some struggle. The thorns and thistles that attempt to overrun the good things of God cannot be burned without pain.
-The gold of a man’s regenerated character is mingled still with earthly dross. But as the flames of heaven play on it, it gradually becomes beautiful, stainless, and spotless. But the fire has to burn.
-The fire that burns at the Crossroads of Life. . . . . . . .
A. The Fire of Misunderstanding
-The fire of misunderstanding is no more evident than in the frequent battles the Lord had with the Pharisees. Notice Mark 3. There was a healing on the Sabbath. A man whose hand was withered needed the assistance of the Lord.
-Before the miracle had ever cleared the ground, the dissenting voices began to settle in on the Lord. So very misunderstood was our Lord. There were times that He would stand entirely alone simply because people misunderstood him.
• Critics joked about His birth insinuating that He was illegitimate.
• They disputed His heavenly origin with ethnic jeers and taunts.
• They accused Him of being demon possessed.
• They scorned His purpose and condemned His teachings.
-But even his family thought Him to be insane. We notice in the closing segment of Mark 3 that they did not even want to be seen near Him or associated with Him. Therefore, they sent word to Him, quietly and discreetly.
-Have you ever felt the fire of misunderstanding? Have you ever felt that you were trying to do the right thing and yet your motives and intents and even your calling was questioned?
-It is possible to misunderstand the greatest of men. There is a host of men in the Bible who were right though misunderstood. First and foremost, Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul and the prophet Ezekiel were all men whom this world was not even worthy of their presence.
-Every man who would set the world, or even a community, or sometimes even a church on fire must be prepared to pass through the fire first himself. A man can very seldom awaken things in others that has not first been awakened within himself first.
-No man can wrap others in revival, in prayer, in intercession, in burdens until he himself has been wrapped in the glowing flames that burns away the chaff.
B. The Fire of Separation
-The news came to Him in John 11. “Jesus, one of your best friends is dead.” Two words summon up the feelings of the Lord in John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” Emotion took over and loss was felt.
-Then there was the bitter reception that He faced at Bethany. The two sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, vented their feelings on the Lord by accusing Him and determining that He should have been their earlier.
-There are times that death and separation seem so final. Feelings overwhelm us, we feel loss, we feel helpless, we feel as if we will break in two. Remember this, the Lord has already been there.
1. Precious Lord, Take My Hand
Thomas Andrew Dorsey was a black jazz musician from Atlanta. In the twenties he gained a certain amount of notoriety as the composer of jazz tunes with suggestive lyrics, but he gave all that up in 1926 to concentrate exclusively on spiritual music. "Peace in the Valley" is one of his best known songs, but there is a story behind his most famous song that deserves to be told.
In 1932 the times were hard for Dorsey. Just trying to survive the depression years as a working musician meant tough sledding. On top of that, his music was not accepted by many people. Some said it was much too worldly-the devil’s music, they called it. Many years later Dorsey could laugh about it. He said, "I got kicked out of some of the best churches in the land." But the real kick in the teeth came one night in St. Louis when he received a telegram informing him that his pregnant wife had died suddenly.
Dorsey was so filled with grief that his faith was shaken to the roots, but instead of wallowing in self-pity, he turned to the discipline he knew best-music. In the midst of agony he wrote the following lyrics:
Precious Lord, take my hand,
Lead me on, let me stand.
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.
Through the storm, through the night,
Lead me on to the light;
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.
-If you live long enough, you will experience heartache, disappointment, and sheer helplessness. The Lord is our most precious resource in those hours of trauma. "The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble (Psalm 9:9). Tom Dorsey understood that. His song was originally written as a way of coping with his personal pain, but even today it continues to bless thousands of others when they pass through times of hardship.
C. The Fire of Failure
-There is certainly another fire that rages within the vast majority of men and that is the fire of failure.
-From the closing portions of Matthew, the terrible scene at the Cross, the spectators, the scoffers said, “Others he saved, but he cannot save himself.” That was the way that it appeared.
-They mistook the dawn of success for the clouds of coming failure. Their were some causes that led them to failure:
• They contained the bad habit of looking at the outward. They were quick to see a color or a cloth and not the principle.
• They judged results by what they wanted instead of what He wanted.
• They looked at success as a matter of thirty or forty years instead of all time.
• They could not understand His leaving self out of view. They wanted a crown, He wanted a cross.
• They saw a bloody cross and a sealed tomb.
-But the Lord brought success out of apparent failure.
-The Scriptures are full of examples of men who rebounded back from the calamities of failure. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, and on and on one could go.
1. The Example of the Pine
One day a boy and his father went into the mountains. They took shelter from a storm in the ledge of some great gray boulders that lay like sleeping giants close to the crest of a lonely ridge. As the two looked upward, they saw the wind lay its grim hands on a mountain pine that towered from the summit of the ridge. It was a sentinel that could escape no danger, an outpost to receive the first shock of the enemy’s attack. Savagely the wind tore at it, shook it violently, and howled through the branches.
To the boy, the tree, strong though it was, seemed about to be torn to pieces. "Look, Father!" he said, pining upward, "what the wind is doing to that pine!" The full fury of the blast just then made the pine shudder and sway. It heaved desperately against the black sky.
"Storms are an old story to that tree," said the father. "A tree like that lives in a struggle from the time it is high enough to catch the first breath of air. Tennyson says a tree is ’storm-strengthened on a windy site.’The strongest trees are always those that have weathered the greatest number of gales. Besides, the question is not what is happening to the tree, but what is happening in the tree."
"The pine does not really seem to mind fighting the storm, does it?" the boy asked.
"No, because it is able to withstand the strongest wind," the father answered. "It is the same with us. It really does not matter what happens to us, but it matters a great deal what happens in us."
C. Fire. . . . . . .
-There are numerous other fires that we could understand in the context of this message give time:
• The Fire of Fear.
• The Fire of Bodily Illness.
• The Fire of Stress.
• The Fire of Betrayal.
• The Fire of Depression.
lll. CONCLUSION
Some of you here may know DH. He is a man who works in conjunction with the Forestry Division here in --------. His life has to do with taking care of the forest and dealing with forest fires and so on. Interestingly enough, he tells about a seed that is found in our country that once it falls to the ground must have something spectacular to happen for it to give it’s life for the growth of a tree.
Most seeds in the course of time are exposed to the elements and the outer hull of the shell begins to wear down so that when the early spring rains began to approach that the water weakens the husk on the shell and it will begin to grow. But this one particular seed does not respond in this way. It has to be exposed to extreme temperatures before it will open up and expose the seed. The only way that this can occur is for the seed to be in the middle of a forest fire.
I wonder if some of the fires that we are forced to endure in this life are primarily to open up some of the greatest fruit available to God and the progress of His Kingdom. I don’t know about you, but I am going on. . . . . . . . . . I have made up in my mind that there is nothing in this world worth missing Heaven for.
-It’s like the old song "I’m Gonna Make It" . . . .. . . . .
Philip Harrelson
barnabas14@juno.com
barnabas14@yahoo.com
