PREACH HERE!įIRE-BAPTIZED BELIEVERS have the eternal fate of the sinner weighing ever-present on their minds, the freedom offered in the Gospel hovering always near their lips, and the convicting truth of the Cross burning radiantly on their faces.The Easter season lasts 50 days for Catholics, which is 10 more days than Lent! It’s like St. 12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”įIRE means the same thing in 11 as in 10 & 12: God’s loving hatred of sin’s effects. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He Who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 5 Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him 6 and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. 4 Now John himself was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey. The CONTEXT of “AND FIRE” in Matthew 3:11 is recorded in verses 1-12, especially the immediate context of 10 & 12: In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 and saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” 3 For this is He Who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord Make His paths straight’”. He also prepares for Himself instruments of death He makes His arrows into fiery shafts.ĭeuteronomy 32:22 – For a fire is kindled in My anger, and shall burn to the lowest hell it shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. If he does not turn back, He will sharpen His sword He bends His bow and makes it ready. Psalm 7:11-13 – God is angry with the wicked every day. And my understanding of FIRE in Scripture began to open up.įIRE in Scripture is almost exclusively God’s response to SIN. As I walked through the world after this encounter, I was more grieved by the impact of sin on people and through people. Michael Brown stuck his fist into my stomach and shouted FIRE, my whole perspective began to change. Since I first walked through the rear Sanctuary doors and Dr. So what is the context for our key references to “the fire” in Scripture?īut first let me testify for about my life-altering experience of “FIRE!” at the Brownsville Revival in 1999. Why did “divided tongues, as of fire” rest on the 120 on the Day of Pentecost just as they were “all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance”? (Acts 2:4)Īnd what does it mean to be filled, in John the Baptist’s words, “with the Holy Spirit and fire”?Īs we proceed, we need to remember that “A TEXT without a CONTEXT is a PRETEXT” for any half-truth or deception (D. What did Jesus mean when He said in Luke 12:49-50, “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished!”?

What did Moses mean when he said, “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24) & what did Jeremiah mean when he said, “His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones” (Jeremiah 20:9)? Hungering for “the fire” is in our DNA.īut what does it mean to BURN BRIGHTLY with the FIRE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT? What exactly does it mean to be “on fire,” to be “fire-baptized,” to “filled with the Holy Ghost AND FIRE?” I don’t mean “What do I think it might mean?” or “What did it mean when I was growing up?” But instead “What does it mean BIBLICALLY?” For whatever “fire” is Biblical is available to us NOW & we whatever “fire” is Biblical WE NEED NOW! And we have a tradition as Pentecostals of admiring those who are “on fire” for Jesus. We are called in Philippians 2 to be BRIGHT LIGHTS (or flames) in a dark and crooked world. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.' Matthew 3:11 – 'I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. Tree of Life Ministries – Danville, Virginia – – Pastor Dan Woods

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