Text: Exodus 3:1-2
Moses was on the mountain top on Mount Horeb as we learnt last month. God has also repositioned us and many of us are now operating from the mountain top. The first thing Moses encountered on that mountain top was fire. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire, and you know very well, according to Hebrews 12:29, the Bible says our God is a consuming fire.
When you read 1 Kings 19:11-12, you will discover that fire is part of the advanced guard of God; when God is about to visit, fire comes. First, it explains Psalm 68:1-3, where it says, “let God arise and his enemies be scattered”. It goes on to tell us that His enemies will be melting before Him, as wax melts before fire.
You know fire is the advanced guard for the Almighty God. You need the fire of God to fall, because God cannot engage in any meaningful conversation with you until the fire of God has purified you. You need the fire to come to purify you. Isaiah 6:1-8 tells us that when Isaiah saw the Almighty God in all His glory, where the angels were crying “holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty”. He took a look at himself, how dirty he was and he cried unto God and said, “woe is me for I’m undone, I’m a man of unclean lips” and God brought a coal of fire and he used it to touch Isaiah’s lips. It was only after that experience, after that kiss of fire, that the Almighty God could now say to him in verse eight, “who shall I send, who will go for us?” And then Isaiah said, “I’m here Lord, you can send me”. You need to be purified by the fire. In Malachi 3:2-4, the word of God made it abundantly clear, before he can even accept the offerings of the Levites, they needed to be purified.
When the fire on the mountain falls, several things will happen and we will use the example in 1 Kings 18:30-40 as our case study. You know the story; it happened on Mount Carmel. There was a competition between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Both were to present offerings to God and not to put fire under it and then each was to call on his God and the God that answers by fire is to be the God of the Israelites. The prophets of Baal presented their own offering, they cried unto their god; their god didn’t answer because it is a dead god.
And then when it was the turn of Elijah, he said in order that nobody would think that he had secretly put fire under his own sacrifice, he said they should drench the offering by several buckets of water until everybody was sure even if there’s fire put underneath, with this water flowing, the fire will be out. Then he called on his God and fire fell. The Bible says the fire consumed the sacrifice and went ahead to consume the wood and then it went ahead and consumed the rocks and then it went further and consumed the earth around the place and it went ahead and consumed the water.
We are going to look at these one by one.
1.When the fire falls, it means your offering has been accepted. God accepting your offering means He has accepted you. In Genesis 4:3-5, you remember two brothers, Cain and Abel; both of them offered offerings to God. God accepted one and rejected the other. When God accepts your offering, it automatically means your prayer has been answered. When God accepts your offering, it is a great privilege.
God is not a beggar; anything He wants to do, He has more than enough to do it. So, when you offer Him anything at all and He accepts it, it means He has accepted you.
The time I have seen a man in sorrow, the kind of sorrow that I have prayed to God I will never witness again, was when the church was still young. There was this rich man who had just joined the church and he came to the headquarters and brought us state-of-the-art Public Address systems. I mean in those days we had to slap our amplifiers before they would work and then he brought in brand new PA systems. He came in flowing ‘agbada’ (gown), smiling, but all of a sudden God spoke: ‘Tell him to take away his gifts, I don’t want them”.
Now, if you are a pastor and you heard that kind of voice, if you don’t know the voice of God, you will say get behind me Satan. We stammered when we were telling him. He said, “what?” We said, “sorry, sir, that’s what God said”.
The man said, “God said he doesn’t want my gift?”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir”, we replied.
He went to one of the pillars in the church and began to bang his head against the pillar weeping and sobbing, saying, “God rejected my gifts? it means he has rejected me”.
I pray for every one of you today, may God never reject your offering.
2.When there is fire on the mountain, it means your offering has been accepted; it means you have been accepted; it means your prayers have been answered. In 2 Chronicles 7:1-3, when Solomon offered an offering to the Almighty God, God wanted to show him, “I have accepted your prayer, I have accepted you.” The implication of fire coming down from heaven is simple. When God has accepted your offering, it means the reward will come and usually the reward will come in the day of trouble. According to Psalm 20:1-4, God remembers your offering in the day of trouble and sends help to you. It’s like when you are saving money in the bank, the reason for the saving is that when you are in need you can go and withdraw it. The time you need answer from God most, is when you are in trouble.
3.The fire did not just consume the offering, it consumed the wood. I believe I’ve explained this in the past. Every wood has fire inside it, that’s why we call it firewood; there is fire inside every wood but the fire inside the wood will never come out until there is fire on the wood. In other words, everybody has a potential for greatness, it doesn’t matter who you are now, the potential for greatness is inside you.
I told you when I was still a very small boy just going to primary school in those days. When we were going to the primary school, we had a plate made of wood; they just cut a bit of plate and painted it black for us and they gave us white chalk. The first year in school all you are learning to do is write letter A, B with your chalk and your face will be full of chalk dust. I was returning from school one day and an elderly man saw me with the plate on my head, chalk on my face and said great academician. Another time I was coming from my little village and another very elderly man saw me and said ‘baba Eko’ and that time I had never travelled out of my village. But eventually, I ended up in Lagos.
I don’t know where God wants to take you to, but you will reach your goal. I don’t know what he wants to make you but that potential for greatness that is inside you is going to be ignited by fire. In Luke 5:1-11, the Lord Jesus Christ told Peter that he will be a fisher of men. Years past Peter didn’t win a single soul, then the fire fell on him at the upper room and the fisherman began his job. It wasn’t long before the shadow of Peter was healing the sick. In Acts 5:14-16, what made the difference was the fire on Peter.
In the upper room when Phillip joined the church, he was just an ordinary member of the congregation and then a day came in Acts 6:1-7 when they were looking for members of the congregation full of the Holy Spirit, members of the congregation whom the fire had fallen on, and Philip was one of the seven chosen. It wasn’t long after that he went to Samaria, Acts 8:5-8, and through him, a whole city got converted because he was full of fire. What was coming out of his mouth was fire, demons heard him speaking and they began to jump out, and God didn’t end there.
In Acts 8:26-40, the Almighty God picked that small boy called Philip, sent him to somewhere in the wilderness where he met a man who was coming to Africa. He got him converted, got him baptized in the water and that man brought the gospel to Africa. Philip didn’t know that he could become the patron saint of a whole continent.
4.When the fire fell on the mountain, that particular special fire consumed the offering, wood and the rock. There is a fire that can consume rocks. The rock stands for hardship, poverty of the cruellest time. That’s why when someone comes from a very poor family, the elders will say he had a rocky start; everything about him from the beginning was hardship. If there is anybody like that here today, the fire will fall.
In 2 Kings 4:1-7, the Bible tells us the story of a widow that has been borrowing and borrowing and then, the creditors came and said ‘now we want our money, if you don’t pay, we will sell your children’. She cried to the man of God, she cried to the fire-carrier called Elisha.
And as the Lord lives, before somebody leaves here today, you will become a fire-carrier.
You know she woke up bankrupt, by the time she was going to bed, she had paid all her debt. The Bible said for the rest of her life, herself and her children lived comfortably. In Mark 10:46-52, is the story of Bartimaeus. If you are talking about somebody who is poor, Bartimaeus was poor. But when the one who baptizes with fire, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, according to Matthew 3:11, was passing by, an end came to the poverty of Bartimaeus. He knew even before his eyes were opened that fire is passing by here today, his garment of shame He will put it off.
In the name that is above other names, everything that links you to poverty will be destroyed today.
5. But the fire didn’t stop with the offering, wood, rock, it went ahead to consume the dust and the dust signifies the flesh. When God made man, He made us from the dust of the earth. When the fire of God touches your body, everything that is in that body that should not be there will be consumed. In Isaiah 10:27, the Bible says anointing will destroy the yokes. Sickness is a yoke, disease of any type is a yoke and when the Almighty God touches you with His hand of consuming fire, when His anointing passes through you, whatever is wrong with your body, He will put it right.
In John 9:1-7, the Bible tells us that when Jesus saw a blind man, a man who was born blind, he spat on the ground, made mud of the spittle and used that mud to anoint the blind man’s eyes. Mud became anointed because of the hand that touched it.
Years ago, funny people who thought they are clever said that Jesus Christ was practicing medicine when he anointed the man’s eyes with mud and the man went to wash and came back seeing. The question I asked is, if that is medicine, why don’t you also everywhere you see a blind man, spit on the ground, make some mud and anoint the face?
In Matthew 8:1-3, when a leper came to Jesus Christ and said, “I know you can make me clean if you are willing”. Jesus said, “I’m willing”. He touched the leper and the anointing of God destroyed everything that is called leprosy. In those days, leprosy was incurable. With just a touch, Jesus allowed the anointing to flow into the leper’s body and everything causing leprosy disappeared.
You know many a times you don’t even know you have a disease until it has gone far. Many of the people that suddenly get diagnosed with cancer, the cancer has been there, they didn’t know. Every sickness, every disease that is hibernating in your body, the fire of God will fall and consume them all today.
6.Then, the fire licked the water. Water was supposed to be able to put off fire but that is if the fire is ordinary. In this case, the fire that fell and consumed water, licked up the water and the application of that is simple: when the fire of God falls, it can wipe away your tears. In Luke 7:11-15, the Bible tells us of a widow, widow of Nain. She was going to bury her only son and then Jesus Christ, the anointed one, the baptizer in fire, came on the scene and touched the coffin. He said to her, weep not and from that day onward, the woman never wept because that which was causing her sorrow had been removed.
In the name that is above every other name whatever is causing you to weep quietly in secret, the fire of God will deal with it today.
There some people who will smile brightly in public but when they are alone at night, they cry, and I’m sure one of such people have been dealt with today. One of such people who was saying, “when will I share my testimony?” And God said, “by this time next month, you will be sharing your testimony”. That means He is going to wipe away all tears from your eyes. The Almighty God has the power to put an end to your weeping, He can even turn your sorrow to joy. He can turn what is bitter in your life to sweetness. In Exodus 15:22-26, when the children of Israel got to Marah, they couldn’t drink the water because it was bitter and God used an ordinary piece of wood thrown into the water and it became sweet.
When you read the story in John 2:1-11, the wedding in Cana. When the wedding was already on and all of a sudden, they ran out of wine. But Jesus turned it around. What was supposed to be embarrassment became a talk of the town. Some of us may not know the meaning of embarrassment and in the name that is above other names, for the rest of your life, you won’t know what is called embarrassment.
Whatever it is that is causing you embarrassment, the fire of God will fall today. And when the fire fell on that mountain, if you read up to verse 40, 1 King 18:40, all the prophets of Baal were killed in one day. All those who have been mocking you, who have been saying where’s your God, after the fire falls today, you won’t hear of them again. In 1 Samuel 2:1-5, when Hannah was singing, after God paid her a great visit, she was able to say, those of you that says I will die barren, show your face now; see what God has done.
Why do you need the fire to fall today?
You need the fire to fall for protection – Zechariah 2:4-5. The Almighty God promised to build a wall of fire roundabout his own, the best protection is that of a wall of fire. When people go into the jungle where there are wild animals like lions, etc., and they want to sleep at night, they always light fire roundabout their tent. Many a times they will look out from their tents and they will see the eyes of these wild animals, the wild animals see them as food, but they know to get to the food they have to pass through fire and the elders have a saying, “no matter how mad a dog is, it will not touch fire”. And you yourself know very well you have never seen a mad man who died by burning. If you see a mad man and you ask him to touch fire, he will laugh and tell you, ‘Do you think I’m mad?’
That’s why I said those who are playing with the anointing of God, they don’t know what they are doing. They are trying to touch fire, that’s why I can pray here right now, all those who are trying to mess with our traditional rulers, the fire of God will consume them. Because every traditional ruler as far as God is concerned, is anointed of God. So, those who think they can mess round with them, not only will the fire of God consume them, nobody in their generation will become great.
You need the fire for protection. When you read Judges 15:14 to the end, the Bible tells us that when they brought Samson bound to the enemies, as soon as the enemies began to rejoice, the fire of God fell. Bible says, all the ropes binding him were burnt as if touched by fire. Oh yes, it was fire that touched the ropes, only that ordinary eyes couldn’t see the fire.
I still remember one of the testimonies of one of my daughters in the choir that kidnappers kidnapped and suddenly they heard her crying, saying, “God of Adeboye, help me, rescue me!” One of the kidnappers said, “what did you say? Are you one of his daughters?”
“Yes”, she replied.
Quickly he stopped the vehicle and dropped her. When other gang members asked him why, he said it was bad business. From today onwards, the enemy will see you as bad business.
You need to become a fire-carrier so that you can subdue any enemy. In 2 Kings 1:9-17, Elijah, a man of God, was sitting on a mountain top and killed 50 soldiers. A king had sent soldiers to arrest him, one man that had no weapon. They came to the bottom of the hill and looked up and said, “man of God, come down; you are under arrest”. I like Elijah, he said, “if I be a man of God… You know I’m a man of God and you say you have come to arrest me, if I be a man of God, let fire fall”. The fire fell and consumed the 50 soldiers and their captain.
When the king waited and didn’t see the soldiers return, he sent another 50 soldiers with another captain. They came and fire consumed them too, and the king sent another 50 soldiers and a captain again. And that one had a little bit of common sense because when he came and saw that 102 soldiers left camp but they didn’t return, I think he counted the number of ashes on the ground and he went on his knees. He said, “man of God, I am just trying to do my duty. I’m not strong enough to say I want to arrest you”. As the Lord lives, after today, your enemies will bow down before you.
When the fire falls, you become a vessel in the hand of God. Acts 1:8, Jesus promised the disciples and said, you shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you. With fire, power, and then you will become witnesses. Many of us we love to witness, we love to win souls, we love to work for God, but what is missing is the fire, power, and the fire came in Acts 2. When the fire fell in the upper room, Peter preached just one sermon and won 3,000 souls. Many of you will love, I’m sure of that, to be able to go through your village or town or your compound and just say Jesus saves, Jesus heals, Jesus delivers and by the next Holy Ghost service, you will need a bus to bring your converts to the Holy Ghost service.
In Mark 16:17-18, the word of God says it clearly that this sign will follow them that believe in my name, they will cast out demons in my name, they will lay hands on the sick and the sick will recover. But it took the fire falling on Peter for him to be able to say in Acts 3:1-8, silver and gold I have none but I have fire power; he said to the lame man, “I command you, rise up and walk!” By the time he grabbed him by the hands, the fire in Peter flowed into the man and the man got up, walking and leaping and praising God. You know the testimony somebody will share next month is how you are beginning to raise the dead.
When you go through the Bible, you will find seven occasions when fire fell from heaven and each time, it fell, it fell on something. Leviticus 9:24, Judges 6:21, 1 Kings 18:38, 2 kings 1:9-12 – twice, 2 Chronicles 7:1, and Acts 2:1-4.
Seven times that the fire of God fell, there was always something on the altar for the fire to fall on. So, do you want the fire of God to fall on you today? Romans 12:1 says you must present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. God is looking for a sacrifice, but He said the sacrifice must be Holy. If you are a sinner and you say you are laying yourself on the altar for God, He is not interested in dirty sacrifices. That’s why even if you claim that you are a Christian and you know that you are not living holy, you need to settle that today.
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