John the Baptist and the Fire of God # 5

John the Baptist and the Fire of God # 5

So John moved the people. They say, "What shall we do?" The publicans cry out. They are a bunch aren't they? Stony-hearted rascals. And yet with the conviction of the Spirit they cry out, "What shall we do?" And John gives the answer in verse 16, he says, "I indeed baptize you with water, but One cometh after me, I am not even worthy to carry His shoes. He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with Fire." Or with Holy Spirit Fire.

We talk about the baptism of the Spirit - its really the baptism of Jesus. There's nothing you can get this side of eternity that didn't come through Jesus Christ. My dear old principal used to call this coming of the Holy Spirit upon us, "The coronation gift of Jesus."

"His fan is in His hand. He will thoroughly purge His floor. But He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. And many other things did he". I wonder what they were. I wish He had left a list, don't you?

Here is a man with no financial backing. He has no program. He has the favor of nobody. He has the Roman army against him. He has the religious army of the Jews against him. He has the Pharisees against him. He has the Sudducees against him. He has no money (he doesn't need it) and he doesn't have a miracle ministry - it says very clearly: "John did no miracle" - Nobody ran after him pleasing: "Have mercy on my son he is a lunatic." Nobody cried, "Unclean, unclean, unclean" or "open my eyes," or "I'm deaf," or something. Nobody said that. He never unstopped deaf ears. He never opened blind eyes. He never cursed a withered leg or withered arm. He didn't raise a dead man.

He raised a dead nation, SINGLE HANDEDLY.

God has had this man in the school of silence. He's been talking to God and walking with God and weeping before God. He's lived with Jeremiah. He's lived with the prophets. He knew what Isaiah said that one day a man should come in the wilderness crying, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Isaiah 35 says that highway shall be called the way of holiness, and that a wayfaring man, though fool, need not err therein.

"He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." God always works with the minority. You've got a wonderful list in 1 Corinthians 15 of people who saw Jesus in His resurrection power. And then it ties the knot at the end of the cotton and it says He was seen of 500 brethren at once. And I am convinced in my spirit it was those 500 to whom He says, "Tarry til ye be endued with power." How many went? 120! 380 of them never bothered. It's always like that. God uses a minority.

There's only a few people that want to go outside the camp. There's only a few people that want to die with Him. The only freedom that lepers had was to walk outside the camp. It was a place where all the sewage of the city went. It was a place where they threw dead bodies and dead animals. It was s stink hole. And the Holiest man that ever lived went outside the camp that you may go inside of it! And yet you have to whip some people to church almost. If I went to the church they go to I would want a whipping too. Isn't it tragedy, almost blasphemy to go to a meeting and you say, "Oh, boy that meeting was cold"? "The meeting was so dead." How can you have a living Christ in a dead meeting? Or put it the other way, How can you have a dead meeting if the living Christ is there?! How can you go out? After all, our business is to know about eternity, is to talk about a time when there is no bonds and no other stuff materialistic, it's all vanished. We are going to a Kingdom that knows nothing of these material things, and yet, we are so slack and so careless about the eternal things.

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation army, just about got kicked out of the Methodist church. That day he walked outside and put his arm around his wife's shoulder, and said, "Darling we are going to raise up an army." "From where?" "We'll take all the cast off, or drop outs from the churches, we'll go to the gutter." And he wrote a wonderful hymn:

"Thou Christ of burning cleansing flame, send the fire. (We ought to learn that.) Thy blood bought gift today we claim, send the fire. Look down and see this waiting host, give us the promised Holy Ghost. We want another Pentecost, (I am not sure if we do, but we need it.) To make our weak hearts strong and brave, send the fire. To live in a dying world, send the fire. Oh, see us on Thine alter lay our lives, our all this very day to crown the offering, now we pray, send the fire."

~Leonard Ravenhill~

(continued with # 6)

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