Healing Light Spreading Fire 1985

Okay, reading from Luke chapter 12, verse 1. In the meantime, when so many thousands of the multitude had gathered together that they trod upon one another, he began to say to his disciples first, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light.

And what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. Jesus is talking about a time of uncovering. When every hidden thing will be exposed to the light of God.

And we have a tendency to think of that time of uncovering as happening when Jesus comes back in glory. But for us, and for many like us all over the face of the earth today, that time of uncovering has already begun. Arise, shine, for your light has come.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Or from first John chapter 1, verse 5. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. There are times in the history of the body of Christ when that light becomes extremely bright.

And the first effect this light has on us when it becomes like this is that it exposes us for what we are. See, and before we can go out into the world and speak with boldness, even before we can have genuine fellowship with each other, we have to deal with the light. And the channel between our inner heart and that light has to be clear.

The Samaritan woman comes to the well at high noon, sun is directly overhead, it's very bright. There she meets a Jewish stranger who asks for a drink. And within a matter of minutes, this woman finds herself standing in light a million times brighter than that of the sun.

You're right in saying that you have no husband. You have had five husbands and he whom you now have is not your husband. Come see a man who told me all I ever did is not this the Messiah.

Or when Peter fell down at Jesus' knees in the boat and cried, depart from me, I'm a sinful man, O Lord. The thing that had Peter upset was this light that penetrated and exposed and shown him what he was, a sinful man. When the Spirit says to us, rise, shine, for your light has come.

Don't be surprised if you don't feel like rising and shining. Don't be surprised if the first reaction we have is to run and hide. Because this is what we've been doing really all our lives, running, hiding, masking, covering ourselves, concealing, deceiving, pretending.

So now the Spirit says, rise, shine, for your light has come. Which means don't be afraid of the light. Don't run away from it.

Come toward it. Step into it. This is the message we have received from him and declared to you.

That God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, deceived, we lie and do not live according to the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us.

But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, this is what the woman at the well did. Instead of running away from the light, when Jesus says, you know, you've had five husbands.

The guy you're with now is not your husband. Instead of being offended and saying, who are you to talk to me like that? You don't know anything about me. She immediately admits where she is.

Steps into the light and is transformed by that light and immediately brings an entire Samaritan village into the light. Or when Peter says to the light, please go away, leave me alone. And Jesus answers, don't be afraid.

From now on, you're going to catch men. Just stay in the light, walk in the light. As he does this, Peter begins to draw others into the light.

He spends the rest of his life bringing people into the light. For reasons that are known only to God, the light that exposed the heart of the Samaritan woman, arrested Peter really in that boat, not fall off his horse on the way to Damascus, is now visiting us and thousands like us all over this earth. Your light has come.

The glory of the Lord has risen upon you. And the first effect of this light is that it exposes us for what we are in great mercy, dead seriousness, holy judgment. The living God has begun peeling off the layers of hypocrisy from our lives and showing us to ourselves.

And in the coming days, as this light continues to shine, we are going to see things about ourselves that we never saw, never wanted to see, never wanted to admit. Who wants to admit that he or she is grossly self-centered? We don't want to admit that we are dishonest, greedy, perverse with lust, devious, jealous, snobbish. And you can be snobbish living on Berner Highway.

You don't have to live on West Maple or, you know, Kercheville and La Ross. It's easy to be snobbish. We're all snobbish, looking down on the other person.

But these things must be uncovered. They must be dealt with. If we're going to have any place in the revival that's going on now, these things that are hidden must come out.

The beginning of the cure, the beginning of the cure is for us to be exposed, for the finger of the Lord to come and touch us, even if that touch is painful. Reading from Malachi chapter three, verse one. Behold, I sent my messenger to prepare the way before me.

And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. He is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

But when he comes, who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver till they present right offerings to the Lord.

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, the orphan, against those who thrust aside the sojourner.

And do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. Before light can burn in us, those things of death inside us must be exposed and burned up by this fire. So that we can present right offerings.

So that we can truly worship God in spirit and in truth. So that we can present our bodies as living sacrifices that are holy and acceptable to him. So that our minds are no longer warped by the values of the world around us that we just absorb all the time.

And we can think with minds that have been renewed by the life of heaven. And that we can demonstrate in our living what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Malachi chapter four, verse one.

For behold, the day comes burning like an oven when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun, S-U-N, of righteousness shall rise with healing in its rays.

You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall and you shall tread down the wicked for they will become ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. So the light of God begins as a fire that burns and cleanses and refines and judges. The fire then becomes light and then the light becomes glory.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness and cover things up, we lie and do not live according to the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.

What does it mean to walk in the light? And to walk in the light thinking, first of all, not of our relationship with each other. That's secondary. It's important, but it's secondary.

The primary thing is our relationship with God. And until that's right, our relationships with each other can't begin. Granted, if we don't keep them open with each other, our relationship with God will suffer immediately.

But the step number one to walk in the light means that we confess our sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And so in his mercy, the light begins to come and touch the finger of God, identify specific things in us that need to change. And we need to do what the woman at the well did. Admit it.

Peter did. He admitted it. Paul did.

He admitted it. You know, instead of fighting it and running and hiding, we say, that's me, Lord. That's me.

He's not trying to demoralize us. He's trying to heal us. He comes to heal us, but he can only heal us when the things that he exposes and brings up from underneath are confessed.

If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. Better to enter into life with one eye. How do you pluck out that right eye? By confessing that the sin this eye is committing.

Bring it to God. Give it to him. If your right hand causes you to stumble, if it reaches for it, something that's going to destroy you, cut it off.

How do you do this? By confessing. You begin by admitting that thing is sin. Stop justifying it or rationalizing it or hiding it.

Confess it. We're praying. Early in the morning, we're coming before God, praying.

Next thing you know, we find our mind in the swamp. You know, instead of sitting in the swamp and wallowing in it, we confess it. Lord, here I am in the swamp.

And the swamp disappears. Confess it. There may be things in our lives here, personal things that need to be confessed to God.

You know, and in great love and mercy, he puts his finger on it. Confess it as sin. Don't justify it anymore.

Confess it before you leave today to him. To walk in the light, secondly, means to receive his forgiveness. Instead of covering my sin-sick heart with masks, I cover my sin-sick heart with his blood, which is able to cleanse it.

If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins, cleansing us from all unrighteousness. He'll do this.

Receive the forgiveness. Your sins are forgiven, he says, but that can only be said to us when we bring the sin to him and open our heart to receive forgiveness. We many times walk around with something which is sin.

It's not weakness. It's not your heredity and environment. It's sin, something for which you're responsible.

You carry this thing around for years, and it destroys your life because you won't confess it and receive forgiveness for it. Now, we come to the Lord and we confess. We receive his forgiveness.

We open our hearts to receive it, and in comes cleansing, healing fire. Which brings us to the third thing, to walk, and final thing, to walk in the light is to embrace his fire. And every time I bring this aspect of it up, I get into trouble here, but I have no choice.

It's got to be said. This is part of it. You know, why do we have to walk away? Why, you know, why do you always have to talk about the cross? That's what the Bible says.

The cross is the fire. When we confess our sins and receive his forgiveness, we immediately stand in this world as Jesus stood in this world. We become agents of redemption for the world out there.

The minute you're an agent of redemption for the world out there, you carry a cross. You are enveloped in the same fire that's swirled around Jesus. You can't be an agent of redemption to the world out there if you're unwilling to carry the cross.

Fire? What are you talking about fire? First Peter chapter four, verse 12. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal, which comes to prove you as though something strange were happening to you. It goes with it, that fire.

But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's suffering. Christ's sufferings is Christ's fire. That you may rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed. Because the spirit of glory and of God comes with the fire and rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or a wrongdoer or a mischief maker.

Yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed. But under that name, let him glorify God. For the time has come for judgment, fire, to begin at the household of God.

And if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Redemptive power, healing light, grace, mercy, love, joy. These things flow out wonderfully from those who embrace the fire. Luke chapter 12, verse 49, Jesus is speaking.

I came to cast fire upon the earth. And would that it were already kindled, I have a baptism to be baptized with. And how I am constrained until it is accomplished.

Jesus cast fire on the earth by being baptized in that fire on the cross. She's read about the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham, putting his son on the altar. And just before it was about to happen that he killed him, the father stays his hand.

And so the fire is symbolic at that point. Sometime later, on another mountain, Mount Carmel, Elijah prepares the sacrifice, remember, and doses it with water and down comes fire from heaven and consumes the sacrifice. But within a very short time, drenching rain came after over three years and quenched the fire.

But when Jesus hung on that cross and died, fire came from heaven and licked up and consumed that sacrifice and never stopped. The fire continued after they took his body down from the cross, buried him in a tomb. On the third day, when he stepped out of that tomb, the fire became brighter and hotter.

The fire moved from Calvary into the city, from the city pretty soon into Judea, Samaria, Galilee to the uttermost parts of the earth. And that fire continues down to this moment, burning hotter than ever. We are the agents of that fire.

We are the ones charged with the responsibility to spread that fire through the world. We can only spread that fire when we first embrace that fire and allow that fire to do its work in us, to cleanse us. Arise, shine, for your light has come and the light begins first as fire.

Judging, purifying, cleansing, restoring, searching, purifying, making new. If we allow the fire to do its work, then it begins immediately. The minute I embrace that fire and really open my heart, even though I don't fully understand what it's going to do in me, when I embrace that fire, the fire leaps from me to others and begins to spread.

For behold, darkness will cover the earth and thick darkness to people. But nations, but the Lord will arise upon you and his glory will be seen upon you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.

But before the nations can come to our light, before kings can come to the brightness of our rising, we have to allow that fire, that light, that glory to do its work in us. We have to let the light search and we have to let the fire burn. And so it comes down again today.

Are we willing to confess our sin to him? Are we willing to receive his forgiveness today? And are we willing to embrace his fire? If we're willing to confess sin, to receive his forgiveness and embrace his fire, then his body and blood for us today will be in fact the food of heaven. And we will walk out of here today burning with that fire and we will spread fire across the earth, across the face of this city and far beyond. Let's just wait a plan for a moment and think.