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.
WHAT IS FIRE?
Fire is a rapid, persistent, chemical reaction that releases heat and light. It signifies intensity, inspiration, enthusiasm, violence and power. And that is why most of the time in the Bible, we see fire as an indication of the presence of God. Fire from heaven destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, (Genesis chapter 19). A pillar of fire guided the Israelites on their journey, (Exodus chapter 13). Fire came down and consumed the sacrifices of Solomon. (2 Chronicles chapter 7). Elijah called fire to consume his sacrifice. (I Kings chapter 18). The same Elijah called fire to destroy his own enemy, (2 Kings chapter 1). The same Elijah was carried to heaven by a whirlwind and a chariot of fire. (2 Kings chapter 2). The same fire of God was the fire that He used to make His ministers. The Bible says that He made his ministers a flame of fire (Psalms 104:4). The same fire is what the Bible calls refining fire (Malachi chapter 3). The same fire is called consuming fire (Hebrew chapter 12). The same fire is called Pentecostal fire in Acts of the Apostle’s chapter 2. We need to get on that fire. We need to understand what we are doing. We need to know that to challenge the wickedness of this present generation, more is needed than dancing and singing. More is needed than semantic and English grammar. It is good to be able to speak English but that is not the condition for God’s power. It is good to go to a Bible college but that is not the condition for God’s power. We need to go back to the traditional, old fashioned revival meetings. We need to go back to the hard core revival of the past.
Our fore-fathers who planted the seed of Christianity in this country accepted the gospel in the spirit of “come-what-may, I am there, I am not turning back.” Unfortunately, instead of the old-fashioned, fire meetings they used to have in those days, we now have modern kind of meetings, which are harmless, without fire and without revival. These meetings are not producing the kind of Christians needed now. If you attended the meetings of those days you received unforgettable challenges. You would hear the kinds of things that would challenge your destiny and your life. When they said, “Let us have a short prayer," their idea of short prayer could be two hours. You received unforgettable challenges. You received a stirring in your heart and if you were a sinner you either decided to get saved or got out of their meetings. Members did not fight when they closed their service. People went home and dug deeper into their Bibles. You could see angels rejoicing at their meetings. The Holy Spirit was moving unhindered, and the devil’s programme for everybody was put in reverse.
This means that those early Christians had fire in their bones. Unfortunately, what we have in our bones now is ice-cream, not fire. Those people did not need Sunday-Sunday medicine to keep them going. They were not interested in spiritual diplomacy or politics.
If you want to experience the genuine fire of God in your life, you need to listen to certain hard truths. Which will help you to know whether you are serious or not, whether you want a fire or not. When sin, worldly pleasures and carelessness are still in your spirit, when hypocrisy, lying, gossiping, lust and laziness are still there, you cannot hope to receive that fire. When you are still reading dirty books and speaking dirty words, you cannot receive the kind of fire we are talking about.
The Bible makes us to understand, that for you to receive this fire you need to be totally filled with the Holy Ghost. When you are still reading dirty books and speaking dirty words, you cannot receive the kind of fire we are talking about Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5:18: “And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess: but be filled with the Spirit.” So the Bible says, “Don’t be drunk with wine. Be drunk with the Holy Spirit." God’s wine is the Holy Spirit. We need to become holy drunks. When the apostles were drunk with the Holy Spirit, the people looking at them could not understand what was going on. They said, “These men are filled with new wine.” But the apostles said, “No, we are not drunk. We cannot be drunk at this hour. It is just the third hour of the day, in the morning. The bars are not opened yet. We are not drunk. This is that which was written by Joel the prophet that, at the last days, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. The young men and women shall see visions. The old men shall dream dreams. Even on your maids and your servants I will also pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy. All these are for you if you are ready for them."
God’s wine is the Holy Spirit. We can be so filled with the Holy Spirit that we would have no space for nonsense. The people of Ephesus that Paul wrote this book to had already received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 19, Paul was telling them that they were now filled with the Holy Spirit. You have to become a holy drunk so that the Spirit of God will fill you to the brim. If you read the Acts of the Apostles very well, you would see that anytime a miracle or something was about to happen, Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit or Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit and then things would begin to happen. The reason many of us are not filled with the Holy Spirit is that we have locked the door against it. Beloved, unless we want to deceive ourselves something is basically wrong with present day Christians. Somebody prays fire prayers then he drinks ‘agbo’ (concoctions) and takes injections. Something is wrong somewhere. Many are afraid of things that are running away from them. When they say witches and wizards, some Christians are so worried, when you say money, some Christians are ready to die for it. Many come to our church but there is no change in their life styles. When you see them somewhere else they do not look as Christians. They look like Jezebel. When you look closely at present-day Christians, you will notice that something is missing. They are not like the apostles of old at all. Let’s not deceive ourselves. Look at Stephen in the Bible, he was appointed an usher yet he was working signs and wonders; how much more the apostles in the upper-room.
Many of our members would say, “Come to our church, our General Overseer will pray for you and your problems will disappear.” But what about you? What is stopping you from giving that person a spiritual first-aid before inviting him to the church? Many of us will arrive at the gate of heaven and see a query waiting for them. And they will say, “What have I done Lord?” God will say, you allowed 200 people to perish. Why?” Shyness, negligence, and fear.
Once I was inside an aircraft, and there also was a lady from MFM London sitting beside one man. All of a sudden the man’s eyes begun to turn and he was having heart attack and vomiting on the lap of the lady. They looked for a doctor and none was found. Then they said, “Any pastor here?” And they located me. When I got there I saw this sister from MFM bowing down her head by the man and murmuring. I immediately tapped her and said, “My sister, this man is dying by your side and vomiting on your cloth, pray for him.” She said, G.O., I am praying quietly.” I said, “Pray.” She said, “But that is why they brought you.” I shouted, “Pray!” She now stood up and started praying aloud. Mr. man, receive your healing.” She did not pray up to five minutes when the man said, “I am all right now. Give me some water.” That was the end of the man’s problem and I went back to my seat. I did not pray. The lady prayed.
We need the fire. If you say that somebody is using powerless and fake power, show the original power so that people will follow your God. I want you to understand what I am saying. You should not say that you are coming to MFM and you don’t have fire. There was fire in the bones of Jeremiah. There was so much fire in the bones of Elisha that after he was buried his bones were able to raise the dead. What are you doing now? I want you to drink God’s wine so that you too can be a fire generator. I can stand here day and night, open the Bible and say, “This is the Greek of this or the Hebrew of that” and you go home without understanding what I am saying. In many churches in Nigeria today, you need to be a university graduate to understand their sermon. There is no room in those churches for the pepper seller. No room for that kind of women who saw me at Sabo market in Lagos and said, “G.O., is that you? You must take part of the fish that I am selling.” And she pursued me with fish. No room for her. Make up your mind, beloved, to be catapulted spiritually. You must drink God’s wine.
CONDITIONS FOR DRINKING THE WINE OF GOD
Someone made a mistake. He came to Jesus and said, “Jesus, in Your kingdom let me sit at Your right hand and my brother at Your left hand.” Jesus said, “It is okay, but are you able to drink from the cup that I want to drink?” He said, “Yes, I will drink.” That was James. He was the first of all the apostles in the Bible whose head was cut off. So be sure of what you want to pray about. The first thing you need do if you must drink the wine of God to excess and get it inside of you, is to receive character deliverance.
What is your character? Your character is what you are in the dark, what is really inside of you. Once I went to greet one of my friends who was a medical doctor Youth Corper. I learnt a great lesson that day. A senior apostle had a motor accident and they bound his wounds and brought him to the doctor for treatment. They also brought another accident victim in the same vehicle. When they pushed the injection needle into the apostle’s buttock, he screamed, ‘Shopona o.” Shopona is the god of smallpox. When they put the injection in the buttock of the other man, he shouted, “Blood of Jesus.” You can see that although the first man was called an apostle, the real thing inside him came out right there. Character is what you are in the dark. You cannot call anything else out of a rotten wood. It is not possible. If I put a cup on a pulpit, I put tea inside it and begin to bang the pulpit and the cup begins to vibrate, what is going to pour out of it is the tea. So, when somebody is agitated, what comes out of him is the real him. If you say, "I do not usually get angry unless I am provoked,” it is because the tea inside the cup is anger. If you say, “I do not usually commit fornication, but I only deal with married women, and I believe I am not offending anybody,” that is what is inside the cup. It is your real character.
What is your character? It is what is left behind after you have departed from a place. If they sacked a person from a place of work and his absence brings restlessness there; if people say, “I wish this person were still here,” he has left a character behind. Two pastors left a particular station. Everybody was smiling when the first one left. But many cried when the second one left. It was because of his character. Your character is like the foundation of a house which is below the surface. Your character is like a smoke; it will expose you and come out. Your character is what you will do if you know that nobody will find out. A lot of people would not steal if they know that somebody will find out. But if they believe that nobody will find out, they will steal.
In many cities abroad, unless there is a problem, you would not find policemen asking people where they are going or opening your boots. What they do ordinarily is to mount TV/cameras all over the streets. If you drive recklessly they would see you, if you commit any crime in the street, they would see you. You will hardly arrive at where you are going before they would arrest you. Because of the fear of this arrangement, many people do not commit crime. But if they get to the place where there is no camera, their real character will show. Your character is your reaction when things do not go your way.
Your character is what God knows that you are. It is what you stand for, your true nature, the kind of person you are. You must work on that your character. Anointing without character is disaster. Some people will say, “How can a man of God do a thing like this.” You are the person calling him the man of God. You do not know what God is calling him. Character deliverance is needed. It is the first thing. If you want to drink of the wine of God, your character must be delivered.
Secondly, if you want to drink the wine of God, you must observe regular spiritual retreat, a time alone with God. A good soldier does not fight all the time. Let us see the strategy of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 14: 23: “And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.” Jesus always observed a retreat. You may be coming to work early and have your retreat before other staffs start arriving. Or you may be staying to have it after the close of work. It should not be the kind of retreat some people say they are having in our church here. They just come here in the morning, locate a very good fan, open it to the fullest, lie down flat on the bench, mumble a few words as if they are praying and by the time you get there five minutes later, they are snoring. That is not a retreat. You are just sleeping inside the church.
Many do not receive from God because they do not stay with God long enough to hear from Him. You can stay in the presence of God for one hour, two hours or three hours. You can stay there for days. You cannot expect to spend ten minutes a day with the Lord and then say, “I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Spiritual retreat is a must. You may run to the mountain but if you run to the mountain and the problem of the valley is still in your heart, and the demon of the valley is still troubling you, you are just there on holiday.
If you want to drink the wine of God, you must have a regular spiritual retreat. It has been proven that when people get away from noise and distraction, God does a lot more in their lives. When people are pulled apart and leave their food and newspapers, things happen quicker. You can do a personal spiritual retreat and stay in the presence of the Lord.
The third thing you need to be practicing if you want to be filled with the Spirit is the principle of the night-watch or night-praying. When I say night praying I do not mean vigil every night. What I mean is that you shake yourself loose from the spirit of slumber that is falling on so many Christians now. Some prayers cannot work in the day. That is why Jesus said that we do not avenge the souls of the saints who cry to Him day and night. He will avenge them speedily. Psalm 119 : 62: “At midnight, I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgment.” We find the same idea in Luke 6: 12: “And it come to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” It was at midnight that trouble began in the prison where Paul and Silas were locked up, when the earthquake of deliverance struck. Many Christians are meant to bring down earthquake of deliverance. When the earthquake of deliverance comes others around you will be set free. Just as it happened to Paul and Silas.
Beloved, if your life is controlled by the alarm clock, you need deliverance. If you cannot wake up occasionally at night to pray, pray to God to give you the enabling grace. The night is the time of terrible demonic activities. In the night, you can cancel any evil counsel that is taken against you. In fact, night prayer is a form of fasting. That is why there is power in all the prayer vigil that we have. If you see anybody sleeping during a vigil, it is either that household wickedness has concluded his agenda, or he is confused and sick. He does not understand what he is doing. It is better to stay at home and not come to a vigil. Because as you are sleeping there and somebody says, “I shake off every spiritual crocodile from my head,” and he shakes it off, the crocodile would say, “Where shall I go?” And if it finds somebody on the bench snoring, it would jump on him. At one Power Must Change Hands programme as an altar call was made, some people started running about and later we found that a strange lizard came out of somebody. The tail of the lizard was almost double the lizard. The power of God pushed it out. So, do not go to that type of meeting and sleep.
Key number four for those who want to be filled with the Holy Spirit is that they must learn how to flow in the Holy Spirit. How do you flow? You pray aggressively in tongues, sing melody to the Lord and yield yourself to the Holy Spirit. Don’t wait for them to sing two or three songs before you begin to flow. Catch the fire and begin to flow immediately.
Key number five: You must follow the principle of meditation, Joshua I: 8: “Thou shalt meditate therein day and night…” So, anybody that wants to become something for God must spend time to meditate in the word of God. If you have no time to meditate on the Scriptures, you have no time to grow in your spiritual life. Meditation has power. We should meditate upon the word of God.
Key number six is fasting. Fasting gives the human spirit an opportunity to build up. Prayer needs fasting for development. It develops your faith and crucifies unbelief. That is why you find that Daniel, Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Jesus fasted. Fasting brings power into your life. I know of some modern faith preachers who now say no to fasting. But that is not what the Bible says. The Bible says that some people came to Jesus and reported that His disciples were eating and drinking. Jesus said, “Do not worry. The bridegroom is with them now. They should not bother to fast. But very soon, the bridegroom shall be taken away, and they will fast on that day.” They seriously fasted when the time came. And we could see its effect in what they left behind. We are not talking about closing the fasting at noon. That is not fasting. We are talking of days and nights of fasting. If you will drink the wine of the Lord, you should be in a position to confront those that are coming from the enemy. You should declare: “I am coming from Calvary, therefore I destroy your power.” And they would say, “I am sorry, sir.”
And the last but not the least, we need complete obedience. If God says something to you, you must comply instantly. If you begin to disobey the Lord, you will quench the power of the Holy Spirit. You will not be able to move anymore. Look at all those people that have been murdered by ritual killers, may be you think there is no Christian amongst them. Jesus says that except you repent, you will perish likewise. Therefore, we need to sit up, and God will help you as you do so, in the name of Jesus.
PRAYER POINTS
1. Holy Ghost fire, kill every weakness in my life, in Jesus’ name.
2. Fire of God in my life, awake, in Jesus’ name.
3. Holy fire that cannot be insulted, fall upon my life, in Jesus’ name.
4. Let my terror fall upon every demonic power, in Jesus’ Name.
5. Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Arise and manifest your power in my life, in Jesus’ name.
6. Let the power of deliverance come upon my night life, in Jesus’ name.
7. Let my dream life be converted to visions of the night, in Jesus name
