Would you turn with me to the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, Chapter 12? We will read the first verse.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
Then turn in the Old Covenant to Leviticus, Chapter 1, Verse 9:
But his inwards and his legs shall he wash with water: and the priest shall burn the whole on the altar, for a burnt-offering, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord.
Verse 13:
But the inwards and the legs shall he wash with water: and the priest shall offer the whole, and burn it upon the altar: it is a burnt-offering, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord.
And Verse 17:
And the priest shall rend it by the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt-offering, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord.
Turn again in the Old Covenant to Judges, Chapter 7, from Verse 15.
And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped; and he returned into the camp of Israel, and said, Arise; for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.
And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put into the hands of all of them trumpets, and empty pitchers, with torches within the pitchers.
And he said unto them, Look on me, and do likewise: and, behold, when I come to the outermost part of the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye do. When I blow the trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, For the Lord and for Gideon.
So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outermost part of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch, when they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake in pieces the pitchers that were in their hands.
And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the torches in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands wherewith to blow; and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.
And they stood every man in his place round about the camp; and all the host ran; and they shouted, and put them to flight. And they blew the three hundred trumpets, and the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow, and against all the host.
Let us have a further word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we have already asked that You will anoint the speaker, the translator, and the hearer. Lord, all we want to do now is, by faith, stand in that anointing which You have provided for us. Let that anointing be upon us all in fullness.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
I do not think, this late in the conference, that it is necessary to say that the theme of our time is vision, worship, and service. If you do not know that, you must be asleep or mentally absent.
These three matters are inseparably linked. You cannot have genuine worship without vision. When we see the Lord, our immediate response is worship.
And you cannot have genuine service without vision, or we run around doing a thousand things, lost in the details, without any understanding of what the Lord is driving at.
Yesterday evening, I spoke from those verses in Romans, Chapter 12:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Spiritually intelligent worship comes out of being a living sacrifice. The decision to lay down your life in its completeness is itself an act of worship. But out of that laying down of your life springs genuine service.
If we try to avoid being a living sacrifice, our service, our work, and our worship are compromised. Into it comes a mixture: self-interest, self-centeredness, self-glory, self-fulfillment. Very quickly, the old trouble of “I” takes over.
Then our service becomes merely a platform for ourselves. We build empires. Little petty people become petty dictators. Jealousies, rivalry, and everything else associated with it follow.
You cannot avoid this matter. This is the thirteenth time we have had a conference together which is based on Christian life and service. It seems an awful lot of times to me, anyway, and I have missed a few of them.
If you are going to serve the Lord—if you are going to be a servant of the Lord—every child of God is meant to be a servant of God. If you are going to be a servant of the Lord, you cannot avoid being a living sacrifice. Otherwise, your service will become something other than genuine service.
This living sacrifice is the burnt offering. It is very interesting that there is a little phrase which you find again and again in connection with the burnt offering. We have read it three times in Leviticus:
An offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord.
A sacrifice made by fire is something that is favorable to God, something that is beautiful to God. I find this very interesting, because fire is a symbol of God everywhere in the Bible.
You remember how Elijah said, “Let the God that answereth by fire, He is God.” There are many other symbols. There is water—living water. But the most common symbol of the presence of God is fire.
On at least two occasions, when they offered the burnt offering, fire came down out of Heaven and consumed the offering.
When God wanted to take hold of a human being—Moses—and make him, by His grace, the savior of His people, it was a thornbush that burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
Out of the flame of fire came the voice of God:
Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
It was one of the most amazing meetings of God with a human being. Can you imagine God getting into a thornbush? Somehow, that fire represents God, and the bush represents genuine service. It represents the servant of God.
Wherever you turn, you will find this matter. Sometimes the whole mountain burns with fire, and out of the midst of it God spoke.
When the day of Pentecost came, the risen and glorified Messiah received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father and poured Him out upon one hundred and twenty very normal people—saved by the grace of God.
Some of their names we know: Peter, James, John, Thomas, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Joanna. Most of them were totally unknown people. We do not know their names. One day we shall know, but we do not now.
They were not great people, not the elite—ordinary people, saved by the grace of God. When the Holy Spirit came with the sound of a gale-force wind, fire appeared and distributed itself into one hundred and twenty flames, one for every one of those people. Not one was missed.
It was fire—the fire of God—because fire speaks in particular of God the Holy Spirit.
Now, dear friends, consider this matter. John the Baptist put it this way in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 3, Verse 11:
I indeed baptize you in 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 in the Holy Spirit and in fire.
Baptized in the Spirit and in fire. What a wonderful picture.
This happened once and for all. The Lord Jesus obtained from God the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and He poured Him out upon that one hundred and twenty. That was an historic fact. But we have to enter in.
When Jesus was crucified, as I said last night, He died for me. He did something in my place that I could not do. When I believed on Him, when He opened my eyes to see Him as Savior, at that moment I was saved.
When was my salvation won for me? Two thousand years ago. That is when it was won for me, and into that salvation I entered in 1943. I was also crucified with Him.
No one explained that to me. I lived for years trying to live the Christian life, trying to dress myself up as a good Christian, trying to put the right words in my mouth, trying to look like my brothers and sisters, trying to pray like them and read my Bible like them.
For a number of years, I tried to be a good Christian. I was very puritanical, very separated from the world, but I had an enormous problem inside.
One day God opened my eyes, and I suddenly saw that I had been crucified with Christ. For the first time, I became free. I just relaxed. Here I am, saved by the grace of God, and I had been trying to polish myself and make myself look nice as a Christian—Christian phraseology, Christian conduct, prayer, fasting. I actually fasted as well.
But it was not the new man. I was trying to make the old man a Christian. When I saw that, something happened.
In exactly the same way, the Holy Spirit was given some two thousand years ago. When I was saved, the Holy Spirit came in. But years later, I saw that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon believers.
I had always been trying to get people saved, and I could never get them saved. I badgered them, pressed them, cornered them, and asked them whether they had seen the light and whether they would come with me to a meeting. I was, for them, a holy terror.
But when the Holy Spirit came upon me, the first thing the Lord said to me was, “No more evangelizing—not until I create the opportunity.”
For three weeks, I lived. I had never really lived as a Christian. I had lived a facade. Suddenly, I began to live. I could smile, laugh, worship, and sense the Lord speaking. I saw the Lord with my inner eyes. I heard the Lord with my ear.
Three weeks afterwards, the captain of the rugby team came across to me in the student common room. He said, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
He said, “There is something different about you and us. We have all been talking.”
Three weeks before, every time I went to that student common room, it was always crowded, but I always had a place because they all went away. But now they came and asked me.
I said to him, “Three weeks before, I would have said, ‘You are going to hell, and I am going to hell.’ But I looked at him and said, ‘Well, you are a sinner, and I am just the same. But by the grace of God, the Lord Jesus has saved me, and He dwells in me.’”
Then he looked at me, and he began to cry. He said, “How could He get into me?” I said, “You ask Him.”
“Where do I ask Him?”
Three weeks before, I would have said, “Come with me to a Christian service.” But now I said, “Anywhere.” He said, “Nobody here?” And without thinking, I said, “Yes, of course.”
Then he bowed his head and said, “Jesus, You know what a sinner I am. Save me. Come into my heart and live within me.”
Three weeks before there was no fire. Three weeks later, something attracted another human being.
Look what happened on the day of Pentecost. When the fire got into the one hundred and twenty, the one hundred and twenty became three thousand one hundred and twenty by the end of the day. Within months, thousands more had believed. Jerusalem was turned upside down, then Judea and Samaria, and everywhere this gospel went.
Wherever there were living sacrifices, wherever there was an offering made by fire, men and women believed. The whole Roman Empire was turned upside down. There were no great theological seminaries and no evangelistic systems, and yet the world was turned upside down.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is not enough to die. It is absolutely necessary to die, but it is the fire that comes upon the sacrifice.
The sacrifice may be in pieces, but it is fire. The thornbush may be a thornbush, but it is the fire. Out of the fire comes the voice of God. Out of the fire is manifested the Person of God. In the fire is seen the place of God.
That is why you can never have the cross without the Holy Spirit, and you can never have the Holy Spirit without the cross. These two come together.
If you have merely a living sacrifice—if you fall into the ground and die, if you deny yourself and take up your cross—and there is no fire, then it becomes religion: heavy, dark religion. It is all affliction, all suffering, all being broken.
But out of death comes life. The Lord Jesus never spoke of His death without, in the same sentence, speaking of His being raised again on the third day.
Therefore, if you have the cross without the fire, nothing happens. And if you have the fire without the cross, it is a strange fire.
Do you think it is a fairy story that, on the day of Pentecost, the fire divided itself into one hundred and twenty flames? Do you think its meaning and significance is this: that for every servant of God, there is a flame of fire?
That flame will not come upon you through your zeal, your devotion, your Bible knowledge, or your affliction of the flesh. It will come upon you only because of the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, do not tell me this is something strange. I have seen it again and again: people who know so much of the Lord, who know so much of the Bible, and yet there is no fire.
Then suddenly there is fire. They pray with authority. They preach with authority. They work with authority. They evangelize with authority.
There are four things that this fire speaks of, and I would just like to touch them. First, fire speaks of cleansing. There is nothing as purifying as fire. It burns away the dross.
John the Baptist said that Jesus would baptize us in the Spirit and in fire. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, correcting and dividing the dirt from the pure.
The first night I spoke, I spoke about Isaiah. From his prophecies, we would think of Isaiah as one of the purest, most noble, and most gifted of the prophets. But when the Lord revealed Himself to him—when Isaiah saw the infinite greatness of the Lord, the unimaginable holiness of the Lord, and the powerful glory of the Lord—he said:
Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
Then the Lord said to an angel, “Take a coal of fire and put it on his lips.” Thus he became one of the greatest ministers in the Old Covenant.
The coal touched his lips, but the fire got into his spirit. It burned in his heart. He became an overcomer, faithfully following the Lord for a long life.
Fire means cleansing. In our Jewish tradition, if we want to make something kosher, we put it in fire and ashes. Then it becomes clean. At Passover, you will see people taking silver forks and knives and putting them in the ashes.
Beloved brother and sister, listen to me, please. There is so much hidden sin in the circles of the Lord: sexual immorality, pornography, fraudulence, deceit in money matters. The list is endless. The fire burns it.
That is why so many servants of the Lord are afraid of the fire of the Holy Spirit. That is why they will not face this matter. There is hidden sin within their lives.
We are all the same. We are human beings, even though saved by the grace of God. But if you do not deal with that sin in your life, it will destroy you. Sin always destroys.
Fire is cleansing. No wonder many people are afraid of the power of the Holy Spirit, because they know they will have to deal with hidden sin.
No wonder our meetings are sometimes heavy. There is no sense of the glory of the Lord. No wonder there is no true worship.
Fire cleans up your business, cleans up your personal life, cleans up your sexual life, and cleans up your family life.
Secondly, fire speaks of power. Fire is flame translated into energy.
The prophet Zechariah said:
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
This was facing the people of God in the time of Zechariah. It was all to do with the building of the house of God. Every kind of problem had arisen—mountainous difficulties, so great that they were depressing.
Then came the word of the Lord:
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.
How are we going to see the house of God completed, with the whole social and educational system flowing so strongly against biblical principles? How are we going to see this work completed?
The lampstand, all of gold—the seven-branched menorah—represents the testimony of Jesus. Every divine building program, whether it has to do with the church or with Israel, will be fulfilled only by the Spirit of God, by the fire of the Holy Spirit.
This comes into poor, weak human beings, saved by the grace of God and constituted servants of the Lord. By the Holy Spirit, this work will be done. It will be completed.
Do you remember what the Lord Himself said?
Ye shall be clothed with power from on high.
Clothing is a wonderful thing, especially as you get older and do not look so good in your figure. It is a wonderful thing to be clothed. It is also a wonderful thing to have the right clothing for the right job.
You cannot do a job of engineering in a beautiful suit. You cannot cook a beautiful Chinese meal in a beautiful silk dress. You have to be rightly clothed—the right clothing for the right job.
That is what the Lord Jesus meant when He said, “Ye shall be clothed with power from on high.” You will have the right clothing for the right job that God has called you to: every gift you need, all the clothing you need, everything.
Again, listen to this:
Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses.
Power to serve. Power to endure difficult people and difficult circumstances. Power to overcome. Power to fulfill the purpose God has for your life. Power to reach God’s end.
Thirdly, fire speaks of attraction. Everyone notices a fire. As soon as there is a fire, you see everyone standing, gazing, looking. It is amazing, really.
I was once in Hong Kong, walking, I think, down Nathan Road. We could not get anywhere because of the crowd, and it was not a normal crowd. Finally, we asked, “What is it?” They said, “Right down the road there is a big fire.” Everyone was standing and looking.
There is nothing like a fire that attracts people. It is extraordinary. Fire attracts.
When there is the fire and flame of the Holy Spirit, there is a witness and a testimony in the people.
Ye shall be My witnesses.
John spoke of holding the testimony of Jesus. It is a matter of fire. The lampstand had seven lamps on fire. It was not an antique. It was not merely a valuable work of art. It was fire. It gave light.
When there is fire in an assembly, men and women get saved—not once a year, but every week. They are attracted by the fire. They know that there is something amongst these people. It is the fire of God.
Then they hear the voice of God, just as Moses heard the voice of God out of the flame in the thornbush.
Oh, brothers and sisters, is it not sad that we have become lukewarm—comfortable? When this happens, rigor mortis sets in.
Rigor mortis is what happens when someone dies. They become stiff. When the fire dies down, there is only a smell of smoke. When the smell of smoke is gone, it is death.
Then we crystallize, systematize, and institutionalize. It is the lesson of church history. It has happened to every single movement of the Spirit of God in the history of the church. By the second, third, or fourth generation, rigor mortis has set in.
Some eighty years ago, the fire of God fell upon some Chinese believers in mainland China, and it spread everywhere. No matter that there was opposition; no matter that it was misrepresented. It was exactly what I have been talking about.
People went out into the streets to reach the unsaved. They came as a testimony. Men and women got saved. The power was such that many of those dear brothers and sisters won the martyr’s crown.
Where is the fire today? We have the truth, but do we see it as a living vision that transforms people?
We can turn a living vision into dead doctrine. Then the fire has gone, and we ourselves become as institutionalized and systematized as any traditional denomination.
What an interesting story that was in Judges. God had cut them right down to three hundred men. How do you win a battle with three hundred men?
The Lord said, “This is what you take with you: a trumpet, an empty pitcher—an earthenware pitcher—and a torch.”
When you put a torch, a light, inside the pitcher, it dies as though it were no light. There is not enough oxygen. How do you win a battle with three hundred trumpets, three hundred earthenware pitchers, and three hundred torches—not held up, but inside?
You would say, “This general is crazy.” They blew the trumpets. They broke the pitchers. Immediately, the torches blazed into flame.
Do you know what has happened to us? We have the trumpet, but the torch is in an unbroken pitcher. No fire, because there is no oxygen.
We need the breath of the Spirit of God. But the breath of the Spirit of God is no good unless the pitchers are broken. That is a living sacrifice. When the pitcher is broken into a thousand pieces, all the oxygen comes in, and then the torches blaze. Then the victory comes as well.
My time is gone, but the last thing: fire speaks of persevering love.
In the Song of Songs, this is how it is put. This is the Lord speaking to His child, to His own. Chapter 8, Verse 6:
Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm:
for love is strong as death;
jealousy is cruel as Sheol;
the flashes thereof are flashes of fire,
a very flame of the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it:
if a man would give all the substance of his house for love,
he would utterly be contemned.
Fire speaks of love—a flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench it.
Do you remember the words of the Lord Jesus when a scribe came with a question? He said, “Master, or Rabbi, what is the greatest command?”
Jesus said:
Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one:
and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind,
and with all thy strength.
And the second, He said, is like it:
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
In other words, let me put it another way: the whole Bible is summed up in this. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
That is the heart of genuine service: love for Him and love for the flock.
Is it not remarkable that the most amazing declaration of the essential nature of love is found in the first Corinthian letter, in the very midst of the whole matter of the church—its life, its character, its meetings?
He has been speaking about gifts, about the members of the body, and about building up. Then he says, “I show you a more excellent way.”
If you do not have love, you are like a clanging cymbal or a sounding gong. You may give your body to be burned, but without love it means nothing. If you have faith to move mountains and have no love, it means nothing.
And he says this: “Make love your aim.”
Dear brothers and sisters, I hope this has not been too much for you. But remember what the Lord Jesus said to that wonderful church at Ephesus:
I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.
John’s Gospel is one of the most remarkable of the Gospels. It is tremendous. Think of the declarations of the Lord Jesus: “I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the good Shepherd. I am the door. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Before Abraham was, I am.”
This tremendous Gospel is not merely history; it is interpretation. I would have thought the Lord would say to Peter and the others, “Have you got it? Have you understood what I have said? Do you understand those declarations: ‘I am this, I am that’?”
But He does not. He asks this simple question three times:
Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?
“Feed My lambs.”
Again:
Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?
“Tend My sheep.”
And again, this time using a different Greek word for love—but we will leave that for the moment:
Lovest thou Me?
Peter was irritated. “Lord, Thou knowest; Thou knowest that I love Thee.”
“Feed My sheep.”
This tremendous Gospel, this revelation of the deity of the Lord Jesus, this Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, ends with the question: “Do you love Me?”
It is no good writing theological treatises, answering wonderful doctrinal questions, or working your fingers to the bone. The question is: Do you love Me?
Fire keeps alive first love. It means that your love will grow more and more unto the day of Jesus Christ.
Here is service: love for Him—unconditional love for Him—and love for the flock.
Shall we pray?
Beloved Lord, we have to confess that the fire in many of our hearts has died down. In some, it may have gone out altogether.
Oh, Lord, by Your Holy Spirit, we do not want strange fire. We want that flame of the Lord. We want that fire that comes by the Holy Spirit.
We want to claim our portion in the fire. O Holy Spirit, come upon us. Enable us to do what we cannot do ourselves and to be what we can never be in ourselves.
Lord, hear our cry and work upon us all. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus.