Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of Jesus' 'eyes of fire' in Revelation, which symbolize His omniscience, passionate desire, and ability to purify and judge. He explains that these eyes see everything, penetrate our hearts, and reveal God's consuming love and jealousy for His people. Bickle encourages believers to seek intimacy with Jesus by focusing on His face, which leads to a deeper understanding of His heart and a transformative experience of His fire. The sermon highlights the dual nature of Jesus' fire as both a source of empowerment and a means of judgment, urging the church to embrace His presence with reverence and love.

Turn to Revelation 1 if you want to follow along in the scripture. Father, we thank you for the spirit of revelation. We ask you for the spirit of impartation to be released even now that your eyes of fire would stir us and touch us and awaken us to love and the fear of the Lord. We thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen. While we're continuing in the series on the descriptions of Jesus in the book of Revelation, session six, we're going to look at the eyes of fire a second time. We looked at that at session five. This is a essential truth that we really have to be established in. I'm going to give a little bit of review, but we'll be going into some new territory from the last session. Paragraph A, Revelation 1, verse 13. In the midst of the lampstands, this is John speaking, I saw one like the son of man. His eyes were like a flame of fire. That's very significant. He, John mentions this three times in the book of Revelation, that Jesus had eyes like a flame of fire. This is one of the most emphasized truths in the book of Revelation. When you consider that very few things are mentioned twice and just a small number are mentioned three times. Paragraph A, Jesus's eyes of fire. They speak of number one, his ability to see everything. His eyes can see through everything in the way that fire penetrates metal. Nothing could be hidden from his gaze. If anything gets in the way like fire, he goes right through it. He penetrates Number two, his eyes of fire speak of his fiery desires. His eyes are not weak or bored or unfocused, but they're filled, filled with desire. And so we are to understand what he feels by this revelation of his face, of his eyes. Number three, it speaks of his ability to impart the fire to us. It's more than desire. It's desire that can be imparted. And number four, his eyes of fire speak of his commitment and ability to destroy everything that hinders love. In other words, judgment. So the eyes of fire that are emphasized so much in the book of Revelation, three times being a significant emphasis in the book of Revelation, it sets forth these truths that he sees everything, he feels desire, he imparts it, and he has a commitment and an ability to destroy everything that gets in the way of love. Paragraph B. Now knowing that Jesus has eyes of fire is actually practical. It seems maybe just a little bit ethereal, but it's actually quite practical. It equips us to walk in the fear of God, knowing that his eyes are on us. It equips us to walk in intimacy, and it equips us to walk in peace as well, that we know that he knows all things. That terrifies us if we're resisting him, but it gives us security and peace if we're seeking to live in agreement with him. The same eyes. Now this revelation is especially relevant in the most intense hour of history, the generation described by the book of Revelation. In that generation, there will be the greatest temptation and the greatest persecution, but Jesus will show himself as the God with eyes of fire, as the bridegroom with eyes of fire that will help us to overcome the temptation and to endure the persecution, and this is related to the truth of his eyes being like fire. Now I don't have this in the notes, so you might write this down. This to me is a kind of a given, but I think it, I should have put it in the notes. Psalm 27, verse 8, when King David said, Lord, I will seek you. When I said, Lord, I'll seek you, the Lord said, seek my face, specifically. Seek my face, and then David said, that very thing I will do, I will seek your face. Now it's interesting that David is the first one to whom God, the uncreated God, said to him, when you seek me, set your focus on my face. Set your focus, set the focus of your heart. In other words, the posture of your heart, your face is to be set upon my face, because that is the, the premise of this whole teaching about the eyes of fire, is that if we posture our heart to look at God's face, which means to meditate on these dimensions of who Jesus is, but we do it with confidence. It's not just we study about it on the run, but we actually set our face on his face, because to look at his face is different than just to look at the sky or the stars and to see the, to meditate on the power of his hand, the works of his hands. When he says, look at my face, he's saying, posture yourself through focused meditation upon the interior qualities of who I am, because through his face, we touch his heart. So set the focus of your heart to know the stirrings and the movings of my heart. That's what he means by seek my face. And when we seek his face, we come into encounter with the truths that are related to his face, his eyes of fire. Now, of course, not many people will see the eyes of fire like John did at this age, but there's measures to this. Our heart can be stirred by the fire of God in a real low level and increasingly more intense levels, even before we see him face to face, or even those that might have, be blessed to have an encounter like John. Although when John saw the face of Jesus, face like the sun and eyes like fire, he felt like a dead man. And so if you're blessed to have that experience at this age, well, then it would be rare. But the point of this passage is there are measures of experience from the beginning stirrings of the fire of God in our heart to the more intense measure of release upon our heart. Now, the truth or the message of Jesus's eyes of fire, it reveals his majesty and his beauty. It imparts his power. It tenderizes us, it fascinates us, and it terrorizes us, like John who fell dead before the, fell as a dead man when he saw the eyes of fire. Now, we want to be fascinated, tenderized, and in a holy way, terrorized. The fear of the Lord is what I mean, awestruck at various levels. So we want to set our face towards the Lord, set our face upon his face, so that we see the stirrings of his heart, the quality of his heart, which is more than just the works of his hands. That's what this truth is about. It's the posturing of our heart to receive from his heart. Paragraph C, very significant that Moses received the understanding from the Lord directly. God spoke to Moses and said, I am a consuming fire, in essence. He said, the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Now, this is God revealing God to Moses. God significantly connects his consuming fire to his jealous desire. God connects the two together. And if he would not have done that, we may never have understood it, but he gave it to Moses. His, his consuming fire and his jealous desire are connected deeply. So fire is not just an issue of removing the wrong things. It's the revelation, it's the unveiling of what burns in God's heart, jealous love. He's a consuming fire, which means a devouring fire. Now, if we live in agreement with him, we want him to devour the things that are getting in the way of love in our life. We want to love him more. We want to feel his love. We want him to consume or devour the things that hinder our experience. But for those that resist him, he is still a devouring fire. He's a consuming fire who jealously desires us. That's the positive side. Or he fiercely destroys that which resists his love. And there is no presentation of God, Old Testament or New Testament, that can diminish this in truth. Meaning some people have the entirely wrong idea that God was fire in the Old Testament and he was judgment, but in the New Testament, he's love. No, in the Old Testament, the New Testament, he's identically the same. He never ever changes. When somebody tells you, well, that's God in the Old Testament, this is God in the New Testament, that is completely in the wrong direction of what the Scripture says. In Hebrews chapter 12, I don't have the verse here, but I'll just quote it to you. Hebrews 12, verse 29, the writer of Hebrews actually quotes this verse and applies it to the New Covenant believer. Hebrews 12, 29, where he says, our God is a consuming fire. He quotes this or he makes reference to Deuteronomy 4, 24. But the God who has consuming desire, the God of consuming fire, I mean, has jealous desire. And there's no contradiction in Jesus's personality. His desire that wants us and the power to destroy everything that hinders love is the same fire. There is no contradiction in the Jesus who's a consuming fire of desire, the positive sense of love, and the Jesus who's a devouring fire of judgment. It is exactly the same person with no contradiction whatsoever. Paragraph D. Now the implications of God as a consuming fire are seen when we study how God describes His own throne to His people. Now God's only described His throne a few times in the Bible. But each of the times that God describes His throne, He puts, He allows the prophet to see the fire of desire and the fire that destroys. It's the same fire. He lets the prophet see that fire around his throne. It's very significant because the implications of the consuming fire is this everything that's close to God has this fire of desire and this destroying fire that removes everything that gets in the way. It has both elements, which is the same fire. And every description around the throne and those that are nearest God's throne have most fire. It says in Daniel 7, verse 10, Daniel's looking at the throne of God. He sees a river of fire coming out of the throne. Now this is a river of desire. This is a river of destruction. Again, the destruction is only destroys that which hinders love. For those that agree with love, it's an empowering fire. It's an enabling fire. It's a fire of impartation. To those that resist it, it's a fire of destruction. So the fire that devours, in the negative sense. Of course, we want him to devour the things in our heart right now. I want to feel him more. I want to understand him more. Lord, remove the things that keep me from feeling and understanding you more. That's the devouring fire, the consuming fire. In Revelation 15, verse 2, John saw the saints all before the throne on a sea of glass. Now there's billions of saints, several billion saints in history, all standing on the sea of glass. All those in past and all of, you know, all up to that time in history, a billion or two, no one knows the number. And they're on the sea, which is the great conference center. It's the great convocation place where all the saints gather and all the saints are filled. They're standing in the midst of flaming fire. Can you imagine a sea before the throne that's large enough that a couple billion saints could be there and they're all consumed in fire? That's like the upper room in Acts 2 when the Lord released fire in the upper room. That was only a token of the prayer meetings around the throne of God that are filled with fire. Now, of course, that's a fire of desire. And there is nothing that's in the way. So what they saw and what they experienced in Acts chapter 2 was only a token of what they, of what John saw in Revelation chapter 15. I mean, I can imagine John through the years when the saints would ask him, what was it like being in the upper room in Acts chapter 2? And he thought, well, it was amazing. Tongues of fire. We saw the fire with our eyes. Now John's in his 90s. He sees the real upper room, the heavenly upper room. And he goes, my, we only had a small token of that back, you know, in Acts chapter 2. Paragraph E. I just give a, just a dictionary definition, couple dictionaries put together. Definition of fire. Fire is a chemical reaction that releases heat and light, accompanied by the brilliance and the beauty of flame. That's what fire is in the most simple definition. It's a release of energy in the form of heat or the form of light, but in the brilliance of flame, it's beautiful in the glorious brilliance of flame. And the natural fire speaks of, and just, just in a dim way, the energy, the light and the heat and the brilliance of God's very own person. God isn't, doesn't just have these qualities. This is what his being is like. To come into contact with him is for the heat and the light of his being with the energy of it and the beauty of it to be imparted. Let's go to a Roman number two. Now, when we posture ourself as King David did in Psalm 27, verse eight, we looked at that a moment ago when the Lord said, seek my face, David. And David said, that very thing I said I would do, not just seek God's hand to be delivered from his enemies, because that's what David was doing. He was seeking God's hand. He wanted freedom from his enemies. The Lord says, look me in the face, your face to my face. Your heart connecting with my heart is what he's saying. Now, when we apply the, the truth of the eyes, Jesus' eyes of fire, it is the truth of seeking his face. But it's more than just seeking his face. It's seeking his face with the understanding that there's fire in the heart of Jesus, in the eyes of Jesus. So when we come before him to seek his face, absolute top priority is we come before him not just afraid that something will be destroyed, but we're encountering God who is love, who is desire itself. We are encountering pure intense desire in the purest expression of it, the being of God. Because when some people, I've read the commentary, the commentaries, they talk about fire. They often, they only talk about judgment, but fire is first desire before it's judgment. Because it's his, it's his desire for love that creates the need for judgment. If there was not a fire of desire, there would be no need for, for a judgment. His holy desire is in place. His holy purity and his holy love is the same thing. They're all synonymous. Paragraph A. So when we come before Jesus, foundational point number one, the eyes of fire, he's a God of strong desires. Now this is foundational to the bridal paradigm or the bridal perspective of the kingdom of God. God doesn't just have power. He has desire. He doesn't just have desire that's negative to remove the negative. He has desire to interact in a positive way with his people. He is God of desire. So when John sees Jesus' eyes, it gives insight, or when John makes this truth known to us, because John already knew it, it gives us insight into how Jesus feels when we seek his face. He is filled with holy, benevolent jealousy. His jealousy is holy. It's pure and it's for our good. It's for the good of his kingdom. It's not a weak, selfish, evil, envying jealousy. It's not jealousy like man has. It's a, it's a whole different order of jealousy. It's benevolent jealousy. It's jealousy for our good and for the good of God's kingdom and for the good of his glory. Paragraph B. Now the fire is consuming, which means it takes possession. It consumes, it controls. It takes possession of everything that gets in its way. What an intense, not just description, this is reality. This is the Jesus we just worship to for an hour, just a moment ago. God's love is not passive. When you listen to the views of different people today, the secular humanism that's like love is tolerant and love is passive. Love is not passive and it's not tolerant. Love is pure desire when it comes from God. Desire implies want, but it doesn't imply lack. God doesn't lack anything, but he still wants. He desires not because he's needy, because he is love. He is the very fountain of desire itself. There's nothing passive or tolerant about his desire. It's intense. It's full steam. It's tender in its application, but it cannot be improved upon. It cannot be increased is what I mean by intense. Paragraph C. Now, what encourages us in a practical way is that Jesus has promised to baptize us with fire. In other words, to release tokens of his eyes of fire upon our life, upon our ministries, to touch history with his fire. John the Baptist said it in Luke 3, verse 16. He goes, when Jesus comes, before his purposes are complete, he will baptize his people with fire. We have a biblical basis to have confidence. We will experience the fire of desire and we will participate in the fire that removes everything that hinders love. That's called judgment. Now, fire makes metal soft, and so the fire of his eyes will soften our heart. It will tenderize us. Fire causes ice to melt, so we bring our heart before him that's cold. It will become warm and tender and soft. He promises to visit, but we need, but his eyes of fire, we will receive that dimension of grace. And again, there's many levels from a beginning level to greater levels. I want his fire in my heart. He says, if you want it, then seek my face. If you want it, not just seek my power, but seek to encounter my heart. Because see, David was seeking the power of God in Psalm 27. Starts off, he says, Lord, help me with my enemies. He says, I want you connected to my face, David. That's what I want you to do. It's more than seeking power. Some people can go to a prayer meeting, it's very common, and seek the power of God. There's nothing wrong with that. That's biblical, matter of fact. But you can seek his power. You can seek his hand without seeking his face. Other people could seek his face, but not his hand, meaning they want their heart touched. They don't really care what happens in society or in the church. We want his face and his hand, but we want them in the right sequence. We have the confidence that he promised to baptize us in fire to release some measure of the grace that's it that's released through his eyes if we will sit before him and ask him for it. Top of page two. When we feel cold in our love, when we feel cold in our servants, we say, Lord, set us on fire. We seek your face. We come in, we posture ourself by setting our eyes on your eyes, so we open our spirit to receive from you. And again, Acts 2, that's, he gave a token of the baptism of fire in the book, in the Acts chapter 2, verse 3. There were 120 of them. They were praying 10 days, and it was just a down payment. Now, up to that point in time, it was the biggest down payment they'd ever seen. Now, God had showed his fire on Mount Sinai when the children of Israel, they saw it, but the fire didn't come on them. When Solomon's temple was being dedicated in 2 Chronicles 7, the fire fell. The people saw it, but it didn't get on the people. But here in Acts 2, it gets on the people. But then again, a minute ago, we looked at around the sea of glass in heaven, in the new Jerusalem, it will be the book of Acts' reality to the full ideal, the full manifestation. The fire will be on the people of God forever, but we have a right to ask for tokens of it now. And a little bit of this fire will change us in dramatic ways, and we can receive it over and over and over. I'm constantly asking the Lord, release your fire, more. Whatever measure I have, I want a bigger measure. And he says, well seek my face, because it's in my heart to give you fire. But we got to make eye contact for that fire to touch your heart. Luke chapter 2. No, I mean Luke chapter 24. When Jesus, after the resurrection, was talking to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, after he was gone, they said, did you feel that fire burning on your heart? When he spoke the Bible to us, when he was talking about the Bible, did you feel that flame on your heart? And the other guy goes, yeah, I sure did. I didn't know what that was. When we come to Jesus and talk to him, it's personal, our personal prayer life, sitting at the feet of Jesus, and the subject is the Bible. We're talking to Jesus about Jesus in the Bible. We're talking to him about his, about God. But, but it's in context to the Word. The Word's open and we're talking to him. That is the posture where our, the spirit of fire touches us. You want to make Luke 24, 32 one of your promises that you're believing for at this age. Never let go of Luke 24, 32, because you talk to Jesus about the Bible. You two talk, using the, the Scripture itself, the fire of God will touch your heart progressively over the years. Paragraph E is in July 1988, when the Lord spoke Song of Solomon chapter 8, verse 6. He spoke it audibly. And he was talking about this young adult movement that would come. This is 20 years ago. He said that he would, I'm just summarizing it, not, not quoting exactly what he said, but the summary of it. He goes, I'm going to release the anointing of Song of Solomon 8, 6 upon these young people. Now that's a, a subjective prophetic promise for us as a people. But he said, I'm going to do this around the whole world, in other movements, other streams of the body of Christ. He's going to release the fire of love upon the human heart. Now we want this in fullness, like they have, you know, on the Sea of Glass. When everybody's in the fire of God to the full degree. But that's after the, you know, that's in the resurrection, or before the presence of the Lord, face to face. It's a better way to say that. But we could have tokens of this right now. Lord, I want the seal of fire. Release fire on my heart. He says, well come and set your face on my face. Not just set your face on getting the power in your ministry, but again, that's a good thing as well. I don't want to minimize that. It's right to seek God for power and ministry. But we don't have to choose. We get his face and his hand. We get them both. The thing I fear is that we could be right here at IHOP, prayer meetings, 24-7, asking God to change society, change the laws, release the power, save the lost, but never encounter his fire in our own heart. We seek his hand. Seek his hand. Seek his hand. Break in and change America. Break in and change Europe. Break in and change this. Change that. Change this. Bring thousands to the kingdom. Purify the church. We're asking him for power, but we never ever get eye to eye with him and ask him to touch our heart with his own fire. That's because they have a vision of Jesus with power, but not a Jesus with eyes of fire that will touch their heart in a very deep and intimate way and a supernatural way. I want, I want the whole thing. I want him to break in, in all the levels of society and the church, but I want my heart to be stirred by those eyes. Does your Jesus have eyes of fire that want to intimately connect with your eyes and touch your heart? That's why it's critical that we, we get this foundation, in our foundation, this vision of Jesus, the bridegroom God, the Jesus with eyes of fire. Roman numeral three. Jesus possesses all knowledge. He's omniscient. Paragraph A. Now being omniscient means he has all knowledge. Omni means all. He has all knowledge. It says in Job 34 verse 21, his eyes are on the ways of man. He sees all of the steps of man. The Lord sees every single thing we do. He sees the full truth about everything and the way that fire penetrates metal. That's the, that's the imagery that we have in the scripture, because it's true. And the way that fire penetrates metal, so his eyes can see through everything in the way the fire can go right through metal, if it's intense enough. And his fire is more, far more intense than natural fire. He sees the heart of the matter. He sees behind the scenes of everything and below the surface of everything. Of our heart, of those that are for us and those that are against us. He sees everything. And if your, if your heart is set to love him, that is a powerful reassuring reality. That his eyes are set upon us. Paragraph B says in Hebrews 4 13. There is no creature that is hidden from his sight. Meaning there's no human, but there's no demon, there's no angel, there's no created being that's hidden from God's sight, that's out of the scope of God's control. There is no demon that God doesn't have full knowledge of, that's completely in the sight and in the scope of God's authority and knowledge. There is no creature hidden from him. All things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. When it says all things are naked, it means there's no human covering that can distort the knowledge or hide the knowledge. There is no way, there is no, you can't get a group of people that agree with you and then the knowledge is changed. That's what happens a lot in the in the court of man. You get all the right people agreeing, then the judge gives a ruling, a false ruling. But God says that all there, everything is naked. There is no human way to cover the truth of anything. It's all wide open to God. There's no creature hidden from his sight. Again that's angelic, demonic, human or even a creature. I mean even, you know the day may come where you're in a difficult situation and you say, Lord that creature is causing me trouble. I know that your eyes are on it, help me. That might be more relevant in the days to come than we imagine. Now the definition, one of the, one simple definition of the fear of God, very simple but very practical definition, is that the awareness that God sees everything you do. That's a definition of the fear of God. If you know he sees everything, you fear the Lord. Many people live disconnected from that awareness. Even people in the body of Christ, they get caught up in what they're doing and they lose connection with the idea, with the truth that everything that they do is before God's eyes. Now that's not just a negative truth to make us stop doing the bad stuff. It's a powerful truth or I mean it's an empowering truth because he also sees the good in the cry of your heart as well. He sees the intention of your heart to do well. Even when you come up short he sees it all. So when you read this, you don't only think of oh no, you also say good because the part that's bad you can repent of it and get and because of the blood of Jesus it can be erased. I like the idea that God's eyes are on me. When I mess up, I can genuinely repent and the blood of Jesus covers it. But the rest of the time, which is the vast majority of our lives, all of us, most of us in this room, we're reaching in our spirit to obey him and we're serving him in small areas that people don't appreciate and we're crying out for breakthrough and it seems like nothing matters. Nobody sees it but I want to assure you his eyes see it. Very, very powerful truth. This truth makes the righteous very happy and it makes the wicked very mad. The truth that God sees everything. Paragraph C. He takes careful notice of everything. This strengthens those that love him. It's hated by those who don't love him. This truth, he sees everything. Look at this in Proverbs 15 3. The eyes of the Lord are in every place. He sees all the good and all the evil. Now paragraph D. Jesus himself, he applies the truth of his eyes of fire to the church at Thyatira. Now we got to pay special attention because this is the one time in the Bible where Jesus applies what it means for the eyes of fire to be received. He gave, he gave one aspect of it, not the whole of it, but one aspect of the church at Thyatira. There was immorality in the church and the leadership of the church was allowing Jezebel who was teaching in the church that to condone immorality and that the leadership was not stopping her and many were following her. Doesn't give us the percentage but it was a big enough number to where it warranted Jesus pointing it out. Didn't say most the people were doing it and Jesus in in Revelation 2, now he's talking himself, he is personally applying the truth of the eyes of fire one aspect of it. He says in verse 19, these things say the Son of God who has eyes like fire. Verse 20, there's a few things I have against you. You allow Jezebel to seduce, to teach, seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality. To seduce it means by presenting immorality in a way that made people be careless about it. She seduced them by teaching the Bible in a way that made them comfortable stepping over the lines that the Word of God gives. Beloved, that teaching is filling the church today. The way that God's servants were seduced by her was by her teaching that said it's okay to step over those lines that the Lord doesn't care. That's called a seductive deception. And many people are being seduced by a presentation of the grace of God that allows for a little bit of immorality as long as they don't get too carried away. The problem is they almost always get carried away. It may take a month or two or a year or two, but that process works in their spirit and eventually they get carried away and Jesus knows it. It always ends up at a level beyond what they expect, even though the introductory levels. The Lord says no, absolutely not. Here's what he says to her. Verse 22, I will cast her, this is Jesus speaking, I personally will put her on a sickbed. I know that some people don't like that sentence that Jesus just said, but Jesus said it. He says, matter of fact, I'm going to take it up a notch. Verse 23, I will kill her disciples. We're talking about believers in the church. Her children were her disciples, not her physical children. Those that were buying into this doctrine. I'll kill them, which is actually the mercy of God. It will keep some of them from going on further to denying their faith later on. It says in verse 23, and here's what I want. It's not just a mercy to the person I kill. It's also a mercy to all the churches because all the churches in the region of Thyatira, all the churches in the region in Asia Minor, which is modern day Turkey, they will see these deaths and they will know it was the hand of God. Jesus said, I will do it in a way where they will know I'm the one who searched the minds of everybody and the fear of God will fill the church. Now with most of the church, we don't have a Jesus that does this, but he's about to move into this kind of activity in the days to come. It's, it's glorious and terrifying when he does it. In Acts chapter 5, when the liars start dropping dead in the church services, people go, I've heard people say, glory to God. I go, I just say that a little bit slow. Say glory to God, put an asterisk, say glory to God after I repent. People say, we want your power, Jesus. If I come in power, I will kill the liars and I will judge immorality. Do you really want me in power? Because there will be no, there'll be no bias if I come in power. There'll be no partiality. If I come in power, I will strike liars. I will strike the immoral in the midst of the church. No, what we mean, Lord, is win the lost and make the services exciting and make our ministry big. He says, no, I don't do it that way. I come in power and I will come as, I will come starring as me, Jesus. I won't change. He'll be the true me. So I say, Lord, break it with power, but not a, don't give us more power than we're ready for the consequences of it. Because we want fullness of power, but we want to be, we don't want to be naive about it because he's coming with eyes of fire. Meaning there are serious consequences to his desire. When he manifests his desire in a powerful way for saving, the desire that's in him is also manifest for removing that which gets in the way of love. Come with, come with power. He says, well, I come with eyes of fire. We want your eyes of fire. Well, the desire I have for good, it will have consequences for those that are not doing good. Come with fire, come with power. He says, okay, I will. And he will. Top of page three. Now the truth, paragraph E, to Thyatira was this. When he said, I have eyes of fire, he was saying this to the whole church at Thyatira. Those of you that are involved with Jezebel, I have enough power. If we will connect our gaze to each other, if we'll lock hearts, if you will set your heart upon my heart, if you will set your face upon my face, I have enough fire, I can deliver you. So this was an offer of deliverance, not just a warning of judgment. He was telling the saints at Thyatira, I have eyes of fire. I have enough power. My power is more powerful than immorality and pornography and all these things. I have more power than darkness. Come to me. But then he was saying a second thing. When I gaze upon you in my power, if you don't take it, then there will be negative consequences. And in that case, some of the believers were actually struck dead by the Lord himself. That's what he said. He would orchestrate it. I don't know the means he would use, but he would orchestrate it. He says, I will kill them. I will be the one responsible for taking the action. Now the Jesus of the eyes of fire, he will deliver the one that wants to deliver. He has enough power to deliver. And the Jesus of the eyes of fire, he will intervene to those that don't want. We want his power. We want him to break in. But he doesn't come just to make ministry exciting and meetings exciting. He comes as the Jesus with eyes of fire. And that's who we want. Paragraph F, he said in Malachi 3 that he would come. Now this is related to the second coming. This is before the second coming and it's the events before and after his coming. He says this. That's what the prophet Malachi says, but it's the Lord's, the Holy Spirit describing the Jesus. When he comes at the second coming, he will come like a refiner's fire. Beloved, we have the word of God as our basis. He's coming in a way to manifest fire to deliver our hearts from anything that's negative. He will come like a refiner's fire. Verse 3 of Malachi chapter 3. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi, which means the priest. He will purify his priests. He will purge them. He says, when I come, I will come with grace to liberate people from that which has compromised in their life. But if they don't accept the liberation, I will confront them. Because I care about them and I care about the larger purpose of God. Because when God confronts a few, the fear of God falls on the multitudes. That's what happened in Acts 5 when Ananias and Sapphira struck dead. The fear of God fell on everyone. And who knows what deliverance it was for Ananias and Sapphira in the big picture. Because who knows where they would have gone with a defiled spirit in the days to come. And if you could lie before God in the midst of the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who knows what they were capable of as the years would unfold. Roman numeral four. Now Jesus having eyes of fire, this speaks of He sees our longing to love Him. This is the positive. He sees the positive stirrings of our heart. He doesn't only see the negative. He sees the longing in our spirit to do right. Because when some people think of Jesus seeing everything, they only think of Him seeing the negative in their life. He sees the positive. Very important. Now we looked a bit of this in the last session, so I won't go so much over this, but I want to put it in there as well just as a point of review. Paragraph A. The Lord comes. When He comes, He will bring to light the things hidden. He will reveal the counsels of the heart, which means the motives of the heart. He will reveal the workings of the heart, the counsel or the motives or that stirring in your heart, that process your heart goes through. And then He says what probably was very surprising to the Corinthians, Paul says, and then God will praise each one of you. Like what? When God reveals the counsels of my heart, He's going to praise me, which means affirm what was in my heart. I thought when God revealed my motives, I was in big trouble. Paul's saying when God reveals your motives, you get affirmed. You're praised by the Lord Himself. Now that's a good time for you to say in your heart, Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you. The stirrings, the workings of your heart for Him will are being registered and being noticed by Him right now. And He will praise you for them. The counsels, the workings of your heart. Psalm 34 verse 15. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. He's not just on what the righteous do, the good they do. He sees their cry. Now this is a cry for deliverance from enemies, but it's also a cry for deliverance from spiritual enemies, not just physical enemies. He sees the cry in their spirit. He sees their heart is set. They have enemies, physical ones and spiritual ones. And the Lord says, I see it. My heart's on you. You've set your heart on Me. My heart is set on you. He sees the yes in our spirit. He sees our cry for help. Paragraph B. The Lord does not define our life by our struggles. He sees more than our outward actions. He sees the reach in our spirit to love Him and to please Him. The Lord's part of what the Lord, how He defines us, not entirely, but part of it is what we set our heart on, what we set our heart to be. Many of you, you have issues in your life. You're struggling through. We all do. But you're saying, Lord, I want to love you. I want to break through. I want to be yours. He goes, yes. That's how He defines you. He doesn't define you by your failures. He defines you through the gift of righteousness, the blood of Jesus and the cry in your spirit to obey Him. That's how He sees you. He doesn't see you mostly as someone that does wrong. He sees you mostly as someone who's seeking to break through and is crying out for help to do right. Paragraph C. He takes our love very seriously. He takes our love for Him even more seriously than we take our love for Him. We know we love Him, but He really knows we love Him. We know we love Him, and then we fail. The devil comes and says, you hopeless hypocrite. Give up, give in, and quit. And a lot of folks say, you know what? It's just no use. And the Lord says, no, you do love me. Oh, yeah, I do, don't I? I really do. The Lord even reminds us of our love for Him. It's a beautiful reality. Paragraph D. He affirms what I call the budding virtues in our life. He knows the virtues in our heart. They start out as desires, the desire to break through and to be pure on whatever one of 10 areas. The desire is the beginning. It's the seed for which the full virtue is manifest in the future. It's the beginning of victory. And we can have confidence that His pleasure is on us while we're growing, because His eyes are filled with desire, and He will release fire that helps us break through that thing that's holding us. The ropes that are binding us, the fire will burn those ropes and free us. I'm talking about it emotionally. Top of page four. Just going to go just a couple more moments, and we'll be going to bring this to an end and have you read the rest just on your own. Paragraph F. His eyes are always on us. He sees every movement of our heart to love Him. Do you know the way you move Him? I love that song that we sing here at IHOP. Do you know the way that we move Him? Paragraph G. When Peter stumbled, he denied the Lord three times. Now the Lord appears in his resurrected body, standing before Peter and saying, Peter, do you love me? And Peter's going, oh no. This is like, oh this is torture. And they ask him three times. And finally the breakthrough comes in Peter's life, and he says you know I love you. You know that I do. And that was the reality that touched Peter. Beloved, when you know that the Lord believes that you love Him, when the Lord sees your love for Him, when you know that He sees it, He's not written you off as a hopeless hypocrite. You're beginning to see the eyes of fire make an impact, that truth upon your heart. His eyes see. His eyes of desire see our desire. See when because He has such clarity and such desire, He has a propensity to see desire because He is desire. It's not the right word, a propensity. That's a wrong word to use about God. But because He is desire, He sees it really clear. So His eyes of fire see our desire. His eyes of fire liberate us from the ropes that bind us. His eyes of fire will break in if we don't yield, and He will help us even if it has an ouch to it. He will remove everything that gets in the way. It's what He told the saints at Thyatira. He goes, if you don't remove this Jezebel thing, I will come and visit you and search you out with my eyes. Well anyway, Peter said, I know that you know I love you. And beloved, when you fail and stumble, but you know that God knows you love Him, I tell you the shame breaks off. The shame breaks off. Paragraph H. Now we we spend excessive amount of emotional energy fighting condemnation. Many saints do. I mean the blood of Jesus is shed for them. He paid all the price for sin. There's a yes in our spirit. The Holy Spirit's helping us. We've confessed the sin. We've said no to it. We've stumbled at it. The Lord says, I will forgive you, whether it's bitterness or covetousness or envy or immorality or whatever the many types of lusts that there are operating in the world. But when condemnation shuts our heart down, comes a shame, we get so preoccupied with our failure that we lose eye contact with the Lord. And what I mean by eye contact, I'm talking about the posture of heart where our face is locked in on His face. Not just our face on His hand, but our face is on His face, meaning we're gazing in His eyes. Not that I can picture His eyes so clearly. That's not what I mean. But my my eyes are fixed on His eyes. My heart is postured and attentive to His heart. That's what it means. When you're looking at His eyes, you're attentive to His heart. But because of condemnation, they lose that attentiveness. They lose that that gaze. Their Bible gets boring when they have guilt on their spirit and condemnation. It's really hard to read the Bible when you have condemnation. Because you can't, because you're not dialoguing with a person who loves you. You're running from someone that you imagine is mad at you. You can't talk eye to eye with somebody when your conscience is not clear. You know, you get a little child. Well, I don't mean a little one, but you know, five, ten years old. Mom and dad, they know they've done something wrong. They won't look mom and dad in the eyes. Well, honey, look me in the eyes. No. Was something wrong? No. Did you do it? No. Well, look me in the eyes. No. The reason I say that, because that's how we operate spiritually or emotionally with condemnation. We feel guilty. And when you feel guilty, you don't want to open your spirit. And the last thing you want to do is open the Bible and have a dialogue with Jesus, because you think He's mad at you. So you want to run from Him instead of run to Him. We lose eye contact. And again, not that we're, we, my point isn't that I'm trying to imagine His eyes afire. I do that sometimes, but that's not even the point I'm talking about. I'm talking about the posture of my heart looking in His eyes, meaning I'm wanting to feel what's in His heart. I'm wanting to receive what's in His heart. That's the posture that the eyes of fire are beckoning us into that posture, that spiritual posture. But when we have condemnation, we can't connect there. The last thing we want to do is talk to the one with eyes afire if we think He's mad at us. You know, just take a month, go on a couple fasts, go on a couple outreaches, double the amount of workload you do, do, you know, anything to prove to God you love Him. Lord, just forget all that. Talk to me. I have eyes afire. I see desire. I see your desire. Come to me. Let me renew your passion. Well, I think we'll just end with that. Give you a couple more pages there. You can just look on your own. The eyes of fire. Let's stand. So worship team comes up. I'm just going to have you, we're going to wait on the Lord just quietly without any instruments or anything for a few minutes. Stand if you want to, or remain seated if you.