In the first chapter of the Book of Acts we fined the resurrected Christ, having returned to earth, speaking His final words to His disciples. His followers had been meeting with Him for the previous 40 days while He taught them about the coming Kingdom of God which, upon His return, He would establish in the area known Biblically as the Holy Land with its headquarters in New Jerusalem. In verses four through eight we find Him telling His followers to return to Jerusalem and wait there for the fulfillment of “the promise of the Father” that God had given them through John the Baptist. The promise was that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Jesus added that the spiritual baptism would take place “not many days from now.”

Earlier, upon their coming together on the Mount of Olives (vs 6), His disciples had asked Him when He would return to earth in order to “restore the kingdom to Israel.” Jesus replied that He did not know, that only the Father knew. I include the Biblical Truth concerning the return of rulership of the earthly Kingdom of God to the nation of Israel because we must understand that in order to receive eternal life and enter that kingdom, ONE MUST BECOME A SPIRITUAL ISRAELITE, MEANING THAT ONE MUST OBEY GOD’S TEN COMMANDMENT, STONE-ETCHED, HAND-WRITTEN LAW, INCLUDING COMMANDMENT #4.

I am asked why I speak and write so much about keeping God’s weekly Sabbath instead of Satan’s Sunday sabbath. The reason I repeatedly draw attention to it is that, UNLESS ONE KEEPS ALL TEN COMMANDMENTS, ONE IS A “WORKER OF INIQUITY.” Iniquity is translated Lawlessness. Jesus said that, on the Day of Judgment, He would cast away from Him all “workers of iniquity” (Mat. 7:23). Note in verse 22 that the castaways will include those who will have preached, cast out demons and done many marvelous miracles IN HIS NAME. Note also that He will have NEVER “KNOWN” THEM intimately as His friends and brethren. They will have spent much of their lives falsely believing that they were true Christians while leading others into the same deadly error. These are the “many” who will have entered the wrong gate (Catholic/Protestant Church System) and walked the wrong (perverted Gospel–Gal. 1:6-9) way throughout their counterfeit Christian lives (Mat. 7:13,14). Read “Knowing Jesus.” Key word–Knowing.

Without Bible-based knowledge of God’s true Sabbath one can spend a lifetime serving and worshiping Satan, all the while believing that he/she is serving and worshiping the Biblical God. Jesus addresses this issue in Mark 7:6-9 where He noted that such people “… honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.” He also said that though they worshiped Him, their religiosity was “in vain.” Today their bodies are in “the church” but their hearts (minds) are with “another Jesus” (2 Cor. 11:4) who is their god because they obey his word instead of God’s Word. See the homepage of this website for a list of traditions that have replaced God’s commandments (Mk. 7:9). Those in Satan’s church system “know” that they are right due to a combination of Biblical ignorance and reliance upon their false prophets (“hirelings”–Jn. 10:12,13) as their source of spiritual Truth. Read Another Jesus and The Apostasy of the Church. Key words–Another and Apostasy respectively. EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO THE WORD because obedience or disobedience to THE WORD OF GOD determines the salvation seeker’s eternity.

Recall that John the Baptist told those coming to him for baptism that there would come One Who would baptize true God seekers with “THE HOLY SPIRIT AND FIRE.” Then in Acts 1:4,5 we find Jesus telling His disciples to “… wait in Jerusalem for (in order to receive) the promise of the Father”–the “baptism in” (their being filled with) the Holy Spirit which would inhabit the hearts (minds) of those who remained true to Christ and His teachings. In verse 8 Jesus tells them: “You will receive POWER when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses … to the uttermost parts of the earth” where their Israelite ancestors had been scattered generations earlier FOR NOT OBEYING GOD’S LAW. Jesus had sent His disciples to preach His Gospel to “… the lost sheep of the house of Israel” who would then preach it to the Gentiles (Mat. 10:6). This is the process by which God’s Word has found footholds on every continent on earth. The problem is that His Gospel has been perverted by those calling themselves “Christians.” This is not a new phenomenon. The Apostle Paul dealt with the problem in his day (Gal. 1:6-9).

Thus far we have viewed the subject of fire from the standpoint of Godly service to the Lord personally and as a light to others. Now we will look at the subject from a different, but equally Biblical, viewpoint. God’s fire can come to the believer in the form of conviction, punishment and, in the case of true obedient saints, testing (“proving”). Such testing is designed to see if those God would send out as “sheep among wolves” would stay the course when (not if) Satan’s people come against them. In the case of conviction and punishment types of fire, these “voices” of God are telling the recipients to get right and stay right with Him. Many a backslider has found himself in a situation (fire/voice) which reminds him that he is on the wrong side of God. During wartime this is known as “foxhole repentance.” If one has never been right with the Lord, the experience is known as “foxhole conversion.” Unfortunately, most of these “foxhole” experiences are not the result of true heart changes. Once the threat is past the fire tends to go out.

Unfortunately, the same type of experience has been repeated billions of times in what is euphemisticly called “the church.” Such behavior has resulted in a sin-repent, sin-repent cycle that has been accepted as normal in modern church circles. This is where some of the Lord’s fire comes into play. God does not want those who have committed their lives to Him to fail to receive salvation. It is His will that all of “us” to be saved (2 Pet. 3:1,9). For this reason He sends various types of fire to “speak” to those whose sins have separated them from Him (Isa. 59:2). Such fire (God’s “voice”) can take many forms such as sickness, financial problems, accidents, war, natural disasters, etc. Read God’s Warning Voices. Key word–Voices.

Another type of Godly “fire” involves the testing of those whom He has chosen to minister His Gospel to the masses. just as one does not send a man into battle without putting him through a rigorous bootcamp experience, God does not raise up a minister to do battle with Satan and his fallen angels without first testing them to see how they will react when the pressure is on. He usually does this using those areas of one’s life in which one is the most vulnerable. God knows our weaknesses and sends the His fire directly into those weaknesses. God knows whose heart yearns for oneness with Him. He will “heat up” whatever must be overcome in order to have such a relationship. It is because of His virtues that God will work with and fill those who truly hunger and thirst for righteousness. But the filling cannot take place as long as the problem persists. Like oil and water, righteousness and sin do not mix. The fire is designed to “burn out” the problem so that righteousness can fill the void, thereby qualifying the seeker for salvation upon Christ’s return. Salvation will be awarded IF the filled one remains in his righteous condition until his death or until Christ returns (Rom. 5:21; 6:22/ Mat. 10:22). Do not expect to hear these Biblical Truths in church. And do not expect to stay there if you dare to bring them up. Read Second Corinthians 6:14-7:1 where God tells all who would spend eternity with Him to “come out” from among the false Christians and to “touch not” that unclean thing (false church). Note that it is only when one comes out and stays out that God becomes one’s God and one becomes God’s child.

For the above-stated reasons we should embrace God’s fire (voices) because they are designed to either bring us to Him or bring us back to Him. We are commanded to “count it all joy” when we are tested and tried by the Lord (Jam. 1:2). We must learn to embrace the fire and allow it to do its work. Salvation necessitates purity on our part. God’s heat is designed to boil the impurities out of us. Take it from one who has been there, this is much easier said than done. But do it we must IF we are to receive eternal life upon Christ’s return. It is better to be burned now than to burn later. L.J.