Fire of God

The next weapon is His fire.  When describing God’s army, Joel had said:

Before them fire devours,
behind them a flame blazes…

they leap over the mountaintops,
like a crackling fire consuming stubble,
like a mighty army drawn up for battle.

...They charge like warriors; they scale walls like soldiers.
They all march in line, not swerving from their course. 

…They plunge through defenses …

They rush upon the city; they run along the wall.

They climb into the houses; like thieves they enter through the windows. (Joel 2:3-9 NIV)

When Joel wrote this, people must have been scratching their heads, wondering what in the world Joel was talking about.  The fire didn’t come for hundreds of years later, about a month after Jesus had been crucified.  One hundred and twenty people were gathered together praying, when suddenly, flames of fire dropped down through the ceiling and landed on all their heads! 

And those 120 people couldn’t contain themselves!  They got excited – this was something new, something supernatural!  Not only was there fire on their heads, they were all speaking in a different language! 

They burst out of the room and into the street, still speaking in all those different languages.  A crowd of people gathered around and started laughing at them.  They said, “look at all those drunk people!” 

Peter jumped up and quieted everyone down, and he started preaching.  He said, “no, we’re not drunk.  This is the fire that Joel was talking about!” Peter was filled with such power that he preached a sermon that brought over 3,000 people to the Lord that day.  (see Acts 2)

Do you see the power of the fire?  Jesus had told them in, Acts 1, that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came, and now it was here.  And the power grew stronger in Peter.  It began to flow through him to heal people, bring dead people back to life, cause people to repent and be saved, and do many miracles.

 

This fire “plunges through defenses.”  In other words, it breaks down prisons of the devil.  Paul said that the devil has taken people “captive to do his will.” (2 Timothy 2:26 NIV) Not only are people held captive, they are blinded by the devil as well: 

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  (2 Corinthians 4:4 NIV)

Isaiah said that the tormentors, the demonic prison guards, say to their prisoners:

“‘Fall prostrate that we may walk on you.’ And you made your back like the ground, like a street to be walked on.” (Isaiah 51:22,23 NIV)

John adds to that when he says “the whole world lieth in wickedness. (1 John 5:19 KJV) The word lieth here, in the original Greek, means prostrate.  (Strong 1983)

When we were unsaved, and we gave into the thoughts and behaviors of the devil, it’s because we were unknowingly bowing down to him to do his will. 

Since Jesus could see this invisible prison, maybe that’s why He was so willing to set people free even when it went against all the social rules of His day.  He healed people in the Temple, He healed them on the Sabbath, He healed them when He was exhausted and hungry, He healed sinners, gentiles, tax collectors… He was never too busy to set a captive free. 

In fact, with His very first public words, Jesus made it very clear that his ministry would be to set the captives free and to restore sight to the ones the devil had blinded:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  (Luke 4:18,19 NIV)

Paul received the same power during his powerful conversion on the road to Damascus, when Jesus told him this: 

I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26:17,18 NIV)

Evangelists who have discovered this Fire have found that it still has the power to break down strongholds, open blinded eyes, and set the captives free.






For fascinating stories of the Fire of God in recent times, I highly recommend this book:   

Duewel, Wesley L. Revival Fire. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995 Print.

References

Strong, James. Strongs Exhaustive Concordance: Showing Every Word of the Text of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order, Together with Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek Words of the Original, with References to the English Words. Baker Book House, 1983.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.  Used by permission of Zondervan.  All rights reserved worldwide.www.zondervan.com.  The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.