The Forgotten Baptism

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Welcome to Awake Nations Ministries, based in the beautiful sunshine coast of Australia. Here, the fire of revival ignites hearts and fuels a supernatural move of God throughout the nations of the earth.

Join us each week for prophetic insights, apostolic teaching and powerful conversations that will equip you to live fully awakened in your kingdom purpose. This is more than a podcast, it's a movement. Learn more about us by visiting awakenations.org now let's dive into today's episode.

We're going to look at Luke chapter three today. Two verses, verses 16 and 17.

When talking about the Holy Spirit and fire, John the Baptist is approached by the people, people of his day and basically saying, hey, are you the Messiah? Are you the coming one? Or should we look for someone else? Is there someone else?

And he basically, he said, look, I baptize you in water unto repentance, but there's one coming after me. He's mightier than I. And he said, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

And interestingly, he made, he continued and he made this statement. He said, I'm not worthy, of course, to untie his sandals.

And his winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the weed into his barn. But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Now, keep in mind, Pentecost was the in gathering of the wheat harvest. Keep in mind.

So he is referring to what was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Acts chapter two. And he says this. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor, to gather the wheat into his barn.

The chaff he'll burn with unquenchable fire. So there's that separation of the wheat and the chaff that's happening there, right? They would take it on the threshing floor.

They would often either manually stamp on these wheat kernels, these grains, or they'd have an animal do it. And then they would take this threshing and they had a fan as well. And they throw it up in the air and they fan it.

And the chaff would blow in one direction, it would separate from the wheat, and the precious grain would fall to the ground. And speaks of the separation. Now, when you talk about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire, a lot of times we miss this.

He's talking about a work of the Holy Spirit that separates. And we can, we can look at this in, in a couple of different ways.

We can say, well, it's a separation of the stuff in Our life that's not pure, you know, the chaff being burned up. Absolutely, that's true. But it's also separation of a people, a people from a people, a remnant from a remnant.

Even in the sense that God is saying, I'm looking for a people that will allow me to separate them. Separate them from what? Chaff has no value. There's nothing inherently worthy of chaff. So he's saying there has to be this work of separation.

And it happens in the church. It happened in Jesus Day, right where he came. Remember the sayings. He said, don't think that I came to bring peace. Hello. Jesus said this.

But a sword in division. That's what he said. Yeah, don't think so. What was he saying? He's saying, I'm going to separate.

And he talked about even those in your own family turning against you. That's what he said. He was pretty straight up, wasn't he?

The things that Jesus said, and it's a reality of what God is doing, there's a call to separation. Will we do what the Lord's called us to do? Will we be his people?

Will we allow him to separate us even from not only worldly things, but from dead works, from lifeless forms of religion and all of this stuff and allow him to really do that deep work? So we're talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit in five compared to obviously the baptism of John, what was in water unto repentance.

And that's a great baptism. It was a necessary baptism.

Later on in the New Testament, we read about individuals who understood the baptism of John, but they hadn't immersed themselves in the baptism of Jesus like Apollos, right? Priscilla and Aquila find him. He's astute. He knows the scriptures, very learned in that way. But he only understood the baptism of John.

So they said, there's more. Come on now, there's more. So I want to say that to us today. Maybe you've been baptized in water.

Maybe you've been baptized into the body of Christ because of the new birth. And you're part of the body. When the Bible says that we're baptized into one body. But there's more.

There's this thing that Jesus foreshadowed, even in his baptism, which he began to preach was in Acts 2:38, right? Repent, every one of you.

Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is literally the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.

Later in Acts 19, Paul finds some believers in Ephesus says, their disciples says, and he asks them, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? So he uses a word here, disciple and then believer.

So apparently they were believers, but they had not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, nor had they been baptized in water in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that whole thing is critical that we understand that.

And it's not just being baptized in water in the name of Jesus, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, but it's the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now why, why, why is it so important? It's not an extra that you add on to your insurance policy. It's not an extra. Holy Spirit is not auxiliary.

He is critical. We're talking about being immersed, which we said last week. The word baptism means to be immersed, to be saturated, soaked, permeated.

And we have to have the fullness of the Holy Spirit. We have to have this. It's not like.

So when we talk about separation, what we're saying is we're not trying to be divisive intentionally, not trying to be rude or in any way provocative for the sake of being provocative. Right?

But we recognize that when we stand for the truth, when we stand for the full counsel of the Word, there are going to be some people that either like Apollos are going to go, hey, I didn't know that. Tell me more. I'm hungry for more. I want more. If there's more, I want it. So what type of person is that?

They have a good heart, they're hungry for the Lord. But then there's others who are like, no, I reject that. That's dangerous. That's dangerous. Very dangerous.

I've been in places in so called nations that are Christian nations. I'll just say it. South Korea. And some of the most pushback toward preaching the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit was in South Korea. Why?

Oh yeah, Young Icheo. Yeah, of course they believed in that. But there's so many people that it's just up here. There's a culture in that nation.

That's why the younger generation in South Korea, by and large is not turning to Christ. The church is predominantly older now and those younger generations have not engaged like the older generations do.

And it's become in many ways intellectual. Just about, oh, you gotta have the right doctrine, do the right things. They pray. So do the Pharisees. They prayed.

I'm not saying there aren't genuine believers, but I'm saying we have to be very careful that we're not resisting the Holy Spirit. Very careful. There's so many admonitions the New Testament about resisting the Holy spirit. Acts, chapter 7, verse 51.

Stephen, while they're stoning him, he says, you stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. That's what he said. You grieve the spirit, you quench the spirit. You do despite unto the Spirit of grace.

There's all of these verses in the New Testament that warn us, warn us. And discernment is a key. Discernment is a key. My sheep hear my voice. But how do we hear God's voice? Through his spirit.

It's a spirit that bears witness to our spirit, not our intellect, our spirit that we are children of God. And that works on all fronts, that works at every level. So it's really critical that we understand this.

So when you read the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, one of the things that we see is that Jesus is introduced by John himself as the Lamb of God. That takes away the sins of the world, right? Absolutely salvific. We want to experience that. We need to know him.

And as Savior, we need to experience him as the one that removed our sins from us and reconciled us to the Father, forgave us.

But ultimately Jesus didn't stop there, because all the gospel writers mention, each gospel mentions this, that he's also the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Do you know that not all the gospels say behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, but all of them say, he'll baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Now I'm not saying that one is more important than the other. I'm not saying that.

But what I'm saying is that we have in many places preached salvation, preached be baptized in water. That's part of the gospel. But if we stop there, we miss out on literally the third person of the Trinity.

Not only just coming as a result of rebirth, but coming upon us and living in us. You know, Jesus breathed on them after his resurrection, said, receive the Holy Spirit, which was regeneration, the Spirit of God that lives in us.

Romans 8, 9 says, if the Spirit of God is not in you, you don't belong to him, so he's in you, the Spirit of God.

But then he said, now even though I've just breathed on you and said, receive the Holy Spirit, go and wait in Jerusalem, tarry in Jerusalem until you're endued with power from on high. And man, the power of God came on the day of Pentecost. And they were baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire.

So good Holy Spirit, tongues of fire upon each one of them. Powerful what it was.

But I want you to just look at this, because we see in the scripture this image of fire, as I mentioned earlier, you know, there's this separation. Fire can destroy, right? It can bring destruction. But fire also has several positive traits or characteristics to it.

Okay, so we're just going to unpack four of those characteristics today when it comes to do with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. Firstly, that fire produces power. Fire produces power. Think about it. Engines run off of what's known as internal combustion. Internal fire.

That's all it is, right? Fuel and fire, right? God will provide the fire, we provide the fuel. And if we do, we get lit. We get lit and we burn. That's the way it is.

It's so simple, right? Provide the sacrifice, he'll provide the fire. That's what it's about. But we have to offer ourselves our bodies as living sacrifices, is what he says.

And so it's really powerful that we understand this. So fire generates power spiritually. The fire of the Holy Spirit is power for witness, boldness and supernatural demonstration.

Witness, boldness and supernatural demonstration. Acts 1:8 says, you will receive power, which is dunamis, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And you shall be witnesses unto me, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Now, the word witnesses, you probably heard me say this previously, we get our English word martyr. So I'll give you power to be martyrs, right?

Power to be a martyr. What is a martyr?

Someone that is so convinced of a particular faith or tenet of, you know, they have a conviction that's so strong that they're willing to die for it. That's a martyr. And literally all of the apostles, except John, they tried to kill John, boiled him in oil.

It didn't work, so they chucked him on an island. Then Jesus visited him, gave him the Book of Revelation, couldn't stop him. But everyone else, all the rest of them, they literally became martyrs.

They died. Wow. They died. No one dies for something they know is a lie, they know is a deception, right? They knew it was real, so they were willing to die.

Now, take that into our context, because before there's an actual sacrifice, a laying down of our life physically, there has to be a surrender of our life on the altar spiritually, because there are people in cults that will die. They'll die for the cause. They're sincere, but they're sincerely in error, they're sincerely deceived. So it's not just enough to do that.

What we're talking about here is a willingness to literally die to our own ways so that we can share in the life of Jesus. Very different. It's not being preached much anymore. But part of the Reformation we're in today is a restoration of these things, right?

So we have to preach the cross, we have to preach repentance, we have to preach, take up your cross and follow him die. Right, Take up your cross daily, is what Luke said. So it's a powerful thing.

So the person who makes room for Holy Spirit will see power demonstrated in unusual, extraordinary ways. Yes. We need to say, yes, Lord, fill me with your spirit. Baptize me. Yes, we need that. But then we have to learn how to walk in that.

We have to learn how to walk in the Spirit, live in the spirit, keep the fire ignited at all times. You can read about that in Leviticus 6, right? The fire on the altar must never go out.

Every morning, make sure you put wood on it and you fuel it, etc. Right? And it's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. There's a lot of different things we can do to contribute toward that.

But ultimately, the early church, Acts 4. 33, and with great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And great grace was upon them all. With great power.

When there's great power, there's great grace. Great power. It literally in Greek says, mega power. And mega grace, awesome was upon them all. This isn't just history. It's a prophetic pattern for us.

God wants us to experience this today. Power demonstration in the Holy Spirit. Paul said, the gospel I preached to you was not in word, but in power and in demonstration of the spirit.

Why verse 5 of 1 Corinthians 2, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. There's a lot of like, oh, that's very eloquent. That's deep. That kind of. And people listen to that. But ultimately it's not that.

It's about our faith resting in the power of God. So, power. I remember being in Africa just before COVID and I went to a place that really. There's churches, there's ministries.

We did an outdoor crusade and there were quite a few churches involved. And I was the one who was preaching. And God moved so powerfully. We saw so many miracles. Powerful things take place. Powerful things take place.

Healings, blind eyes, death. All of this happened and one Sunday, I preached at a church.

A friend of mine, pastors, it's a significant church, massive church, and I preached there. And at the end of the service, the power of God was so raw, so real, that, I mean, people were falling out under the power.

And multiple individuals, boom. Eyes, opened ears. And there was one woman that I recall, and she was. You could tell she was broken. She was distraught.

And we began to pray with her and minister to her. And as we prayed, she fell under the power of the Holy Spirit on the platform. And she literally began to, like, bounce up and down like this.

She's getting delivered. And after she got delivered, we found out that she had 10 kids.

Her husband had left her because he got involved with another woman, contracted HIV and ended up. She got it and he left her and just took off. So here she is, a mom, 10 kids, HIV full on. We prayed with her and ministered to her.

And guys, I'm telling you, after that, she went to the doctor and she was tested and the HIV was gone. It was completely gone. It disappeared. And they said, hang on a minute. Went to a different doctor, different hospital, checked it.

And again, I've seen it twice. Both times in Africa. Another time in Nigeria, a man that we prayed for, power of God, hit him. It was in a very hard place.

It was literally in a war zone. And he fell out under the power of the Holy Spirit. I was just praying for him to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

I didn't know he was HIV positive also. And ended up, he was completely, totally healed and the doctors were blown away.

Today he lives in London, England, and it's been probably a good 15 years. He's been completely healed. Nothing. God wants to reveal his power. We have to begin to contend for the power, Right?

You ever hear someone say, oh, I prayed for someone. They didn't get healed, Right? Well, at least you prayed for them. The odds of them not being healed when you don't pray for them are quite high. Right?

Think about it. So the question is, well, what if I pray with them and they're not healed? What if you pray for them and they are healed? Right. Come on now. Yes.

So we need to begin to make space for Holy Spirit expecting the miraculous and pressing into that place of communion and power with the Holy Spirit so that he can use us that way. It's a powerful thing. Second characteristic, fire is this. Fire produces light. Fire produces light. Now, what is light?

Light represents revelation, guidance, discernment, truth. Jesus said, I'm the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Wow. Isn't it amazing?

That Holy Spirit is. He's a teacher. He'll lead you into all truth. He'll testify of things to come. The spirit within you will bring correction. He'll bring revelation.

He'll bring understanding. He'll show you the way. And so when we don't know the way to go, it's not our place to just, you know, well, eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

I think this might work. This is a possible lean in, guys. The very wisdom of God, the very wisdom of God is in us. This he's called in Ephesians 1.

The spirit of wisdom and revelation. He's in us. We can hear his voice. We can ask him for supernatural wisdom, for discernment. And today we need discernment. Wow.

Do we ever need discernment today? So many people fall for different things. They fall into things that really aren't God's will or they're insignificant.

We need to be a people that know what God is saying. Some things that we have to just say no to, some things that we recognize are just error, they're aberrations.

We need to be clearly a people that are under the guidance and the leading. And we operate from a place of revelation, not religion, from discernment and not just merely doctrine.

Because you can know the Bible, but with Holy Spirit, he goes, this is how you do it. You know, the Bible says that the holy. That in the armor, right? It says that the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

Sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Now I want to unpack that today. But it literally is saying the sword of the spirit, it's the word of God.

So we have the word of God to use it as a weapon. And it cuts even between soul and spirit, is what it says in Hebrews. So this discerning the thoughts and intents, do you know that?

Discerning our own thoughts and attempts, Sometimes we're like, oh, yeah, I know my heart. The Bible says no man knows his heart. The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things who can know it. Next verse.

I, the Lord, search the heart. I, the Lord, search the heart. So we need Holy Spirit. Now I remember I was ministering in Canada a long time ago, probably 20 plus years ago now.

And at that time there was this particular church that was in revival, and people were going there from quite a few nations of the world. I got asked to speak there and it Was on the media. Everything. Everybody was flocking there. And I got to speak there.

And one day as I was ministering there, I just finished an extensive time of fasting and praying. I actually saw this woman sitting near the front. And the Lord spoke to me and he said, son, I want to deliver her today. She needs set free.

Deliver her. And I knew what the Lord was saying. Spiritually, demonically, she needed set free. And we're not in any way freaked out by that, are we?

We recognize this is probably more common than what we think. People are oppressed and people need freedom and healing, and Jesus loves them and he wants to help them.

But as I saw this woman, I knew right away what the Lord said. So after I finished preaching, I gave an invitation and I said, if you're here and you need a miracle from God, come and watch what the Lord does.

And she was one of the first to respond. She came to the front, and I prayed with her. And she fell out under the power of the Holy Spirit. Ah. Actually, let me back up.

Before I prayed with her, she came forward and I looked at her and I said, you know, you need deliverance. And she put her head down and she said, yes. And I said, I want to pray for you.

Command every unclean spirit to leave your life so you'll be completely free. And she said, all right. I did that. Full on drama. And boom. Holy Spirit touched her. She was on the ground, set free.

There's quite a few of the elders of that church were gathered around her when that was happening. Now, that was awesome. Praise God. She was delivered. She was set free. Amazing.

After the service, one of the men, one of the elders, approached me and he said, glenn, pastor wants to see you in his office also. What did I do? I mean, I thought, you guys, you're in revival, right? I mean, you. You're open to this stuff. And. And anyway, he goes, no, no, no.

So I go into his office, and there's a few staff members and some elders in the office. And the pastor's sitting at his desk, and he looks at me and he's got tears running down his face. And he said, that was powerful.

And he said, we need to repent. I need to repent before God. And I said, why? He said, because that woman that you ministered to and was set free today was a prophetess of our church.

And I said, tell me about it. He said, well, it started about two years ago. She came to the church and she began to say things to us.

And she'd say, hey, I feel the Lord wants you to know this. And the very things we were talking about as the leadership team, some of the things that we were praying into, Spot on. She nailed it.

And after a while, we just went, whoa, this woman is a prophetess. This woman has an amazing prophetic gift, a discerning gift.

And so we would even invite her into prayer gatherings, into leadership times, and we would listen and see if she had a word for us. And she would give a word. And he said again, many times, it was spot on. It was accurate, he said.

But we realized tonight that clearly it wasn't Holy Spirit. Now, we could argue that Holy Spirit can still speak. I'm not going to go there. The point is, the idea here is that something was definitely wrong.

And it reminds us of Acts, chapter 16, where Paul and Barnabas and Silas, as they're traveling around preaching, and this woman who is a slave girl, ends up. She has this spirit of python is what it says. She has a spirit of divination.

And what actually happens, she's following them and she's saying, these men are servants of the most high God. Listen to them. Is there anything wrong with that? It was true. She even said, listen to them. Listen to them.

And she actually said, they're showing you the way of salvation. But Paul, after a while, he gets, something ain't right. Come on, something just isn't right here.

And finally Paul turns around, goes in the name of Jesus Christ, boom, come out. And they find out that she was basically a psychic, that she predicted things based on unclean spirits. And Paul recognized and picked that up.

Guys, we need discernment today.

Listen, I'm telling you, God is exposing so much in the church today, but I fear that we've tolerated it for decades in some instances, and we've not discerned. Something's wrong here. Something's wrong here. And there's things even that we see and we excuse and we justify and we put up with it.

And God's saying, if you won't deal with it, I'll deal with it. And that's to leaders. And God is purging and he's cleansing and he's doing a deep work in his life, but he wants us to have discernment.

Listen, there's churches that Jesus doesn't attend, and yet people go there and they stay there. And they won't move from there because their mates are there. They've been there forever.

And the spirit of God is written, Ichabod over the door, and they just stay there. And there's nothing happening in the spirit. And many times it's dead, it's dry, it's lifeless. And they just stay there. Why?

No discernment, no fear of God. It's like, I know. You know how many conversations? If I had a dollar for every person who said this to me, I reckon I would be able to retire.

I know things aren't right there. I know Holy Spirit rarely manifest there. But you know what? God's not told me to leave there. He's told me to stay there. Really?

You think God wants you to spend. Listen, I understand there's a time when you're praying through things. You're praying through things. Oh, yeah, Lord.

I'm praying that something would happen. And God genuinely does that. Twenty years later, you're still praying through things, and nothing's changed. And you're still there. And guess what?

It's done. It's affected your spiritual growth. Now you've become just like them.

You were on fire at one time, but now the fire has gone out because you're staying in that atmosphere and environment. So important. We follow God. So important. And it takes a people who will fear God will honor him and want what he wants. Want what he wants.

And God says, do this. We need to do it. And God says, no. When God speaks and he says, this is what's happening. I want you to address it. I want you to deal with it.

There's a way to deal with it. I understand that, but we have to get back to Holy Spirit. Discernment number three. Fire produces heat.

Heat symbolically speaks of passion and also compassion. Passion or zeal and compassion. What do I mean? Zeal for God. Right.

Romans: 12:11

That they had sound doctrine. They worked hard, they even endured heart persecution for the namesake. They had so many amazing things happening.

But yet Jesus says, you've fallen from your first love. You've fallen from your first love. Revelation 2:4.

And Jesus warned them that their lampstand, which was his manifest presence, would be removed if they did not repent. A lot of churches today reminds me of Samson. Spirit of the Lord had left him. He didn't even know it. Didn't even know it. Right? Yeah.

Spirit of the Lord. Boom. Gone. Ichabod. Oh, really? We're good. Anything's done. No, I mean recognize and it happens slowly, Right. It's like the frog in the kettle.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. We a little compromise, and then the next thing you know, we're just complacent. We're setting things that God doesn't will, he doesn't want.

He's not there. So it serves as a sober reminder. It's possible to have light without heat. Yeah. Knowledge without zeal and labor without love. Yeah. They say, oh, yeah.

Zeal without knowledge. Well, something's worse than zeal without knowledge. It's knowledge without zeal. Yeah. Come on. Zeal with all knowledge. Yeah. Sons of thunder, right?

Those guys had zeal without knowledge. Absolutely. But at least Jesus had something to work with, right? Rather have wildfire than no fire. You can contain some wildfire, you can have help.

Check it. You can do whatever you need to do. But when there's no fire and there's no passion. But hey, we got the right theology.

We've got the programs, our production. Look at this. But is Jesus presence in power? There are people being conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.

They're just showing up, are they just bums and chairs, names on rosters. Part of a connect group where people are connecting only socially, not spiritually. There's so much more.

When he gets a hold of you, when Holy Spirit gets a hold of you, you cannot stay the same. You will not be the same. When you fall fully, let him have his way, and it will draw a line in the sand.

And there will be some people that go, well, you're pretty radical. Yeah. It's like, actually, do you know what the word radical means next time? It comes from a Latin word which is radix.

Do you know what radix means in Latin root? So when you're saying you're radical, it literally means going back to the roots. If you ever hear radical surgery.

So if you have a toenail and they remove your toenail and they burn the roots out, you ever say that happened to me, they remove it. You know what that means? They burned out the roots. And that's called radical surgery.

So radical means going back to the Book of Acts, going back to the normal, normal New Testament faith. Normal Christianity is radical. Christianity is all. In Christianity, it's fire. Jesus walks into the temple. You know the story, right?

Now, look, I don't think he hit anyone with the whip, but he drove out the animals, flipped over the money tables, and people did run out. Now he did that, and people were like, what? This guy is full on. Yeah.

And Jesus Said because it is written, zeal for my Father's house has consumed me. Zeal for my Father's house has consumed me. I can't hang out with people that don't want to pray or talk about God.

Like, I can't go, you know, like, switch off spirituality today. I can't do that. Jesus is the center of everything. How can I switch Jesus off? How do you know when someone loves Jesus, is fully committed to Jesus?

Well, we talk about their money. They give the money, they use their time, their gifts. But you know, another one is they talk about him.

It says in Malachi, those that feared the Lord spoke together. So we speak about God. We speak about God. Think about the apostles when they told them to shut up and stop preaching in the name of Jesus.

How can we stop? How can we be silent? You judge whether it's right that we obey God or we obey man.

But we cannot help speak about the things that we've both seen and heard. Can't stop. We're going to speak about it because we're burning with zeal and passion. Compassion as well. Jesus was moved with compassion.

He loved people. He saw their needs. Do we carry that when we see people? Are we moved enough to stop like Jesus did?

Are we moved enough to be able to actually do something about it? When was the last time we wept for the lost? Read Romans 9:1:3.

Paul talks about he wished that he could be eternally separated from Christ if that would result in the salvation of his countrymen. And he said this, that I have unceasing anguish and continual grief in my heart. And I weep day and night.

Weep day and night for people that don't know Jesus, people that are lost. Yeah, that's first love. That's first love.

Getting on your face before God and interceding and praying for family, praying for those who don't know him. Praying for our spouses, praying for those who are deceived.

Praying pouring out our heart, interceding in the place of brokenness, in the secret place. Powerful. All right. Number four. Fire purifies metal. Fire purifies metal. Right. This verse, Malachi 3, 3 says, is speaking by the way of Jesus.

Says he will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver that they may offer the Lord an offering in righteousness. Powerful. So look at this. They will bring offerings and righteousness to the Lord. He'll purify the sons of Levi, refine them like gold and silver.

Now, this is a powerful image here, and it speaks of God doing obviously A work of refining us. And God is doing a purification work in his people.

So the baptism of Holy Spirit and fire also speaks of this purification work that God wants to do in us. It's amazing. When you're full of the Holy Spirit and you keep the fire going, God just begins to deal with things in your life. He deals with things.

I remember. And this is our philosophy at ministry is we don't try to change people, but we try to position them in a place where they learn.

They're filled with the Spirit, obviously, they're saved, filled with the Spirit, and they learn to sit in his presence and to be obedient and walk in response to the Spirit. And all of a sudden, some of the things that they've been doing, and we go, that's not right. All of a sudden they say to us, true story, Lynn.

And I've seen this so many times. You know, Pastor Glenn and Lynn, I used to do this and. And then just one day, God spoke to me and he just said, that's just not right.

You shouldn't be doing that anymore. You need to stop and go. And so I stopped it. And we didn't have to tell them, naughty, stop that.

See, because if it was just them not doing it because of, you know, pressure, external pressure or peer pressure, whatever, that's not going to work. It has to come from your heart. You have to know what God says. Obviously, his word is clear on certain things. There's principles in there.

But ultimately it has to come from a place where we all know and we recognize that God is speaking to me, that I need to stop this, that I need to do that. And it's in response there's this purification work inwardly that takes place. So the Spirit is not just about power for ministry.

He's working deeply within us to conform us to Christ's image. So Romans 8:29, right? We love Romans 8:28. For all things work together for good.

For we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and those who are called according to his purpose. Right? Love that verse. Awesome. Hey, if I lose my job, no worries. God's going to give me a better job, right? That's not what that verse means.

It's not at all what it means. Read it in its context. Context is king. What does context say? Next verse. For when anyone says for, you know, there'd be four.

So what does it say for for those whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image and likeness of the son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers, many brethren. So what does it mean? How do all things work together for good? If we love God and we're called according to his purpose?

Well, what it means this is that no matter what we go through, the good, the bad, and ugly, if we have a heart that says God, whatever you're doing right now, I'm staying close to you. I'm leaning in. Use it as a fire to purify me. Use it to burn off the things of my life.

Whatever it is, Lord, that I'm going through, Lord, I trust you. I trust you, and I thank you that you're going to use it for good. What is that outcome? That outcome is we become more and more like Jesus Christ.

And that's how all things work together for good. When you come out of the fire, you're more like Jesus, the metallurgist, the assayer, the ancient assayer.

In New Testament times, that's exactly what they did.

You know, they would put precious metal, gold, silver, in kind of like a pot, and they'd turn up the heat, they'd burn it, it would liquefy, and then they would begin the process of separating the dross, the impurities from the precious metal.

And they had an instrument that they would use because the impurities, the dross would literally float to the top, and they'd skim it and they'd remove it. Now, they do that several times to the untrained eye. You could look and go, oh, wow. Surely the gold has been duly processed and purified.

Now you look at it and go, yeah. But to the metallurgist who was trained, he'd say, no, not yet. Still not 100% purified. So what did he do? He'd turn up the heat even more.

You ever feel that way, God? Man, I'm in the fire. God is working in me. He's dealing with me. He's burning stuff out of my life. You know, he's dealing with my attitude.

He's dealing with my anger. He's dealing with my bitterness. He's dealing with my pride. He's dealing with my stubbornness, whatever it may be.

And we're like, oh, yeah, thank you, Jesus. But God, can't we have a break? And the Lord goes, let's turn it up a little bit more.

By the way, the assayer, the metallurgist was never closer to the gold than when it was in the fire and being purified. So the final test was this. Turn it up. All right. Okay. He says, I think it's ready, but let's do the test. What was the test?

When he would look in and he would see his reflection clearly. Then he said, all right. It's been duly purified.

God is working in us, using whatever he has to to break us, to conform us more to his image and likeness, so that when people look at us, they see Jesus.