A Baptism of Spirit and Fire

Notice as well, he says, we were all baptized. Every believer baptized. He's referring to everyone here in the church who's redeemed.

He's not talking about the super spiritual ones. You got it. Or those that didn't skip devotion five days in a row.

You get it. Or if you memorize, you know, the books of the Bible, you got it. No, it's at conversion. You were baptized by the Spirit of God. Every believer has been at conversion.

You experience the immersion of the Spirit. Baptism is an important component of the Christian faith. But did you know that the Bible talks about different types of baptism? John the Baptist promised two types of baptisms as he introduced Jesus' ministry. He referred to baptism by the Spirit and baptism by fire. What does that mean? What are the key characteristics of those two baptisms and how do baptism by Spirit and by fire relate to each other?

Well, the answer may surprise you. Thanks for joining us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen Davey returns to Luke chapter three, where he explores John's first century revival in a message called Baptism of Spirit and Fire. In 1867, Charles Spurgeon prepared to preach at the large agricultural hall there in London, England. Renovations were being made to their sanctuary, and so the congregation of some 6,000 rented this facility for two months where they worshiped on the Lord's Day. Curious people visited to try and find out what all the fuss was about.

Crowds were estimated on Sunday morning, anywhere from 12,000 to 20,000 people would come to watch and listen. As they prepared to hold their very first service in the hall, Spurgeon went over to test the acoustics. A large platform had been built for the occasion, and he mounted the stairs and the platform, walked out to where the pulpit would be arranged, and simply raised his voice and quoted, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He thought the building was empty.

Unknown to him until sometime later, a construction crew member was high in the rafters working. He had watched Spurgeon walk in, had listened to that verse quoted, and immediately was overcome with conviction and trusted in the Lamb. It certainly didn't take a very long sermon.

Mine's going to be a lot longer today. There wasn't any catchy outline. Just the inspired text through which the Holy Spirit brought a sinner to realize his need of the Savior, the Lamb who'd come to take away the sin of the world. These words were originally delivered by the last Old Testament prophet we call John the Baptizer. He appeared on the scene for a few months before being thrown into prison, who raised his voice to deliver a message from God and most importantly introduced the Lamb of God. Now thousands of people, as we've learned, are streaming out to the banks of the Jordan River to see what all the fuss is about.

They're there to look and to listen. And yet what happens is interesting. The Spirit of God convicts corrupt tax collectors and hardened soldiers and members of this crowd, and they come under the influence of the Spirit of God and repent right then and there of their sin. We really can't imagine this stir that's taking place in the land of Israel. Let's go back there to Luke's Gospel, chapter 3, and let's rejoin this crowd there on the bank of the Jordan. Verse 15 is where we left off.

Let's pick it up there. The people were in expectation, that is they were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he was the Christ. Now you've got this incredible excitement stirring here.

If there were paparazzi, the bulbs would have been flashing, the media trucks would have been lined up along the banks of this river. This is really heady stuff. John is being mistaken here by the crowd who assumes he's the one, he's the Messiah.

This is heady stuff. It would be one thing to be mistaken for a bad guy. He's being mistaken for the Messiah himself, so before he clears it up, let's take a few photos. Maybe sell some mugs with a little locust, that would have been his brand, probably the cup. Or maybe vials of honey, this is the honey eaten by John. You merchandise your name, you make the most of it.

That's what you do. We tend to skip over this because you know John, as if he were sinless. They think he's the Messiah. If you go over to the parallel passage in John's gospel, he doesn't fall for any of it.

He doesn't fall for any of the flattery or the attention or the massive crowds. In fact, John records they came and they asked them about who he was. John records, he confessed, I am not the Christ. They asked them, what then are you, Elijah?

He said, I am not. Well, are you the prophet? They assumed this prophet. Nobody knew his name. It was just sort of this tradition that an anonymous prophet's going to appear.

Maybe you're that one. This could be a messianic title. He answered, no.

No hemming, no hawing, no selfies, no exaggeration, no polishing, you know, here and there. Think about it. When they asked him if he was the Christ, that is the Christos, the anointed one, the Messiah, he could have said, that's a really nice compliment. Did you know that Mary, the mother of the Messiah, when she was expecting, came and stayed with my mom and dad in our home and my mother was expecting me about the same time. The Messiah and I, we go way back.

Could have, no. He says, I'm not the Christ. Well, are you Elijah? Again, he could have answered, well, you know, interesting you say that because an angel told my parents that my ministry would resemble the ministry of that great prophet Elijah. We are so much alike.

Buy some honey. He just says, I'm not. You notice how his answers get shorter when ours would probably start getting longer? Here it is again. Who are you? I'm not the Christ. They asked him, are you Elijah? I am not. Are you the prophet?

No. None of this turned his head. It wasn't about him. He never lost sight of that.

I wonder how much more effective we would be as a church and as believers if we didn't care so much about what people thought of us, as long as they knew we thought much of Christ. Now, Luke gives us the same conversation, though he focuses on another portion of it. That's why I love reading the Gospels.

I get the full story. Notice here in verse 16, this is what Luke records. John answered them all, saying, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the straps of whose sandals I'm not worthy to untie. He says, Jesus is stronger and superior. John says, what I'm doing is temporal. Jesus is going to do something internal. What I'm doing is temporary. What Jesus is going to do is eternal.

I'm just the messenger. Where do you meet the Messiah? Then John uses an illustration here of a household servant's most menial task. In this generation, understand sewers were undeveloped, the garbage, the waste of humans and animals.

That was just all part of walking the streets. The lowest ranking servant in the household would take care of the filthy household sandals. John is saying, I am not even worthy to do that. I'm not even worthy to get my hands dirty on the laces of his sandals. If Jesus were to come into this auditorium today, I think we'd all quickly realize that we don't deserve that either.

In fact, we would just be delighted to be able to fall at his feet. This is John's humility. Now I want to focus on John's prophecy, the last part of verse 16.

Look there. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Now the baptism of the Holy Spirit will be experienced initially at Pentecost as the Spirit of God descends and begins the dispensation of the church.

Unknown in the Old Testament, unknown to the prophets, unique, this parenthetical period of time where God sets aside the nation that rejects him and includes now both Jew and Gentile in the church. The Holy Spirit that came on someone in the Old Testament is now about to immerse someone into the body of Christ. Every believer, by the way, is baptized with the Holy Spirit.

It doesn't have to be proven by something supernatural, something miraculous, some sign gift, some ecstatic utterance. It all has to do with coming to life in Christ. In fact, Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers, to the church there, for in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews are Greek, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of one spirit.

We were. That's past tense. He's writing to the entire church saying you were in the past, a reference to their conversion. That takes place when you're born again by faith in Christ. The Spirit at that moment immerses you, baptizes you, and part of that immersion is into the body of Christ. It is impossible to be a believer without having been baptized by the Holy Spirit.

That's part of regeneration. Notice as well he says we were all baptized. Every believer baptized. He's referring to everyone here in the church who's redeemed.

He's not talking about the super spiritual ones. You got it. Or those that didn't skip devotion five days in a row. You did it. Or if you memorize the books of the Bible, you got it.

No, it's at conversion. You were all. By the way, he also says in chapter 12 and verse 29, not all of you speak in tongues. Not all of you are involved in miraculous events. But all of you were baptized by the Spirit of God.

Every believer has been at conversion. You experience the immersion of the Spirit. So this prophecy reveals the coming of the Holy Spirit who is now involved in every aspect of your life, much of it that we're not even aware. Now John also prophesies of another event, fire. The end of verse 16, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

What's the fire here? John actually makes it clear enough, I think in his own preaching, I'm surprised because there are opinions. Notice his explanation. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Now notice verse 17. His winnowing fork is in his hand. His pitchfork would throw the wheat, stalks in the air, the chaff would blow away and the wheat fall to the ground. He's going to gather then the wheat, colonels, into his barn.

But the chaff he will burn with unclenchable fire. John is simply echoing the consistent prophetic message of another coming baptism of fiery judgment. I want you to listen to the prophet Daniel before him, centuries before. He describes this terrifying scene. Christ who is the Ancient of Days, it's a messianic term, takes a seat. Here's what he writes in Daniel chapter 7. As I looked, thrones were placed and the Ancient of Days took his seat.

The cord is about to open. His clothing was white as snow and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was fiery flames, its foundation like burning fire. A river of fire issued and came out from before him. A thousand thousands served him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. That is to be judged.

The court sat in judgment and the books were open. I mean this scene here is nothing but fire. It's wrapped in the context of fire. Ten thousand times ten thousand, that's a hundred million. A hundred million people are being judged.

That term actually means it's humanly impossible to count them all. Hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people are about to be judged and swept into this river of fire. And the warning is to never stand before him alone. But to have, as John would write in his epistle, your advocate, Jesus, whose defense is the only one that will count.

I'd rather scare you with the truth than placate you with empty promises. Like the one I pulled from a newspaper article, there's a section, at least there used to be, when I got the news and the stirber we call it, called Faith, although there wasn't much in there. One of the guys who answers and supposedly answering biblically, and the Bible's not in there either, but I clipped this one out because it's so clearly categorized the world's religion. Somebody had written into the newspaper to this individual that Jesus said that you can't get into heaven except through him, according to John's Gospel, where Jesus said I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

No one gets into the Father's house except through me. And this answer man wrote him back that that was way too restrictive. Everyone's getting into heaven as long as they're sincere in their faith. Of course, you've heard that. He then went on to illustrate that a Buddhist monk will get into heaven because of his sincerity, and God will consider him then in that day to be an, quote, anonymous Christian. He explained that he got that catch phrase from a Jesuit priest, which was helpful because you don't find that in the Bible.

There's no such thing as an anonymous Christian. But then the journalist went on to rebuke this individual by suggesting that somebody might be judged by God. He wrote, and I quote, it's not your job to tell people they are damned. God didn't put you in charge of dispensing salvation tickets. God put you on earth to witness to your faith by keeping your heart open and your mouth shut. Doesn't quite sound like the Great Commission, but this is the popular Gospel of the world. They don't want to believe in damnation.

They're not really sure how you get into heaven, but I guess you need to be sincere in whatever it is you believe. And in the meantime, don't warn anybody. Just keep your heart open and your mouth shut. Beloved, if you saw your neighbor's house on fire today, you wouldn't go over there and plant flowers in their yard. You wouldn't go walk their dog.

You wouldn't go wash their car. You wouldn't try to show them how much you love them unless you wanted to show them how much you love them by warning them that their house is on fire. Just as Noah warned his world for 120 years, there is the judgment coming, which is global water, called the flood. Get into the ark. So we now, based on scripture and the revelation of God's word to us, we're commanded to warn our world of the next coming judgment, which will be by fire. Peter makes it very clear. In fact, in Acts chapter 10, Peter's preaching, and he refers to something that's easy to overlook because we're never given the account in the Gospels. We're never told, this is when Jesus said this. But Peter reveals it as he's preaching in Acts chapter 10.

Here's what he says. Jesus ordered us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God, God the Father, to be judge of the living and the dead. That is all of unbelieving humanity. And that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sin through his name. In other words, God the Father has appointed God the Son to serve as the final judge in this great courtroom that Daniel talked about and that John describes. So get this, the same Savior who today, while anybody's alive, offers to forgive and save sinners, will one day in the future be seated not as a Savior, but as the judge to render this verdict. Didn't Jesus know, didn't Peter know that Jesus wanted him to keep his mouth shut? No.

Look at it again. Jesus ordered us to proclaim to the people that he's a coming judge. That journalist is tragically wrong. Jesus is right.

Doesn't matter how sincere you are unless you are trusting in the Messiah. A few months ago I read of a commercial airliner landing at an airport one night. They were flying into a small town in the U.S. and their instruments confirmed by the control tower informed them they were about 15 miles from their destination. Somehow they got distracted in conversation and then they saw airport landing lights.

This is it. And they sort of ignored their instruments and they landed at what happened to be a small regional airport, not designed for commercial airliners, just a few miles from their correct destination. The landing strip wasn't long enough for a passenger plane and they nearly crashed the plane over a ledge before it fortunately skidded to a stop, blew all the tires, terrified everybody. At the investigation that took place, both pilots said they honestly thought they were landing the airplane at the right airport. It was an airport. The lights were on.

The coast was clear. This is it. And of course the lesson to me is I read it was obvious. It doesn't matter how sincere you are in landing a plane if you're landing in the wrong place. You might be a sincere Buddhist today. You might be a sincere Baptist. You might be a sincere Muslim or Mormon or Methodist.

Are you landing in the right person? Luke will write later to his friend Theophilus that Jesus is the only way. He writes, there is salvation and no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

I mean, how clear can he make it? There is no one else. There's no one else. There's no other name under heaven.

How big is heaven? There's no other name, nobody under heaven who can save us. And the mission of the church is to take this name, this person, Jesus, to the world and to invite them. And maybe you're the one who needs that invitation today, to land in him, to be immersed by the Spirit, by faith in Christ, into the body of Christ. That's the baptism you need. We've also been ordered to take to the world a warning that those who reject him as the Savior will one day stand before him as a judge and hear them deliver, hear him deliver this verdict to them as they are sent eternally to be baptized, immersed in this lake of fire.

So what about you? Is he your coming Savior or your coming judge? If you're a Christian, the mission of the church is your personal mission as well. We invite all who will listen to come to him as Savior, to be baptized by the Holy Spirit into the eternal family of God. If you're not a Christian, the message for you is to respond in faith to the gospel today.

This is wisdom for the heart. Stephen Davey has a concise, easy to read explanation of the gospel called God's Wisdom for Your Heart. We have this resource available in a print version, and we'd be happy to send you a copy today. Give us a call at 866-48-BIBLE. That number once again is 866-48-BIBLE or 866-482-4253. We're happy to send you one complimentary copy of this resource, God's Wisdom for Your Heart. If you'd like information about getting multiple copies to share with others, we can help you with that as well.

This presentation is also available on our website. You can go to wisdomonline.org and you'll find this under the About tab. It's also on the Wisdom International smartphone app. Right on the home screen of that app, you'll find a button that says Gospel. What's great about that is that you can share the message of the gospel with people as you go about your daily life. Well, we have one more message to go in this current series. Stephen's been working through Luke 1 through 3 in a series called Good News of Great Joy. Join us for the conclusion next time here on Wisdom for the Heart.