A few years ago, we frequently heard people say, “Now the fire has fallen in Skien; now it has fallen in Porsgrunn.” What did they mean? Well, all they meant was that revival had broken out in Skien and Porsgrunn. But was it correct to say that fire had fallen? No! John the Baptist said, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Luke 3:16. There are people who believe and insist that fire is only sent as a judgment over the ungodly—and that it is not to be used on believers. Now the question arises, “What does it mean to believe?” The one who has received forgiveness for all his sins is called a believer. He is cleansed in the blood of Jesus. This usually happens in a moment, but then that person must begin to walk in the purity that he obtained when his sins were forgiven. It soon becomes apparent, however, that he does not have enough power to accomplish this. He joins some religious denomination and fights for its cause, but having thus been taken captive by the devil, he commits the works of the flesh. Not only that, he still has many vices and a lot of residual evil within himself to put off. He needs God’s power to live this life, so he prays and receives the Spirit of God. The Scriptures tell us that the requirements of the law are to be fulfilled in us when we walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. The Spirit of God starts to compel us, and that is a fire for the flesh. First we are baptized with the Spirit; then, if we are obedient to the Spirit, we are baptized with fire through obedience to the Spirit. “The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” Deut. 4:24. If we have His commandments and keep them, both the Father and the Son will come to us and dwell with us. But the Father is a consuming fire, a jealous God, who comes as a consuming fire against our flesh. A person who is not only baptized by the Spirit but who also obeys the Spirit will say “Yea” and “Amen” to this, because he has known and experienced the fire. When Jesus turned His face toward Jerusalem in order to suffer and die there, the Spirit led Him into the fire. Peter wanted to spare Him from that fire, but Jesus said, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” This is also the reason that we never hear people speaking from the pulpit about this baptism of fire. They cannot bear the fire of the Lord, because in the depths of their heart, they have not really set apart the sacrifice. Every sacrifice must be seasoned with fire. Those who present their bodies as a well-pleasing sacrifice to God will very quickly come in contact with the fire. In every person there is plenty of the body of sin remaining to be used as fuel for the fire. Rom. 6:6. The difference between the ungodly and us is that we voluntarily accept this fire that leads us into life, while the ungodly, against their will, are subjected to the fire that leads them into death. “Everything that can endure fire, you shall put through the fire, and it shall be clean; and it shall be purified with the water of purification. But all that cannot endure fire you shall put through water.” Num. 31:23. There are certainly many believers in our day and age who know a lot about purification by water, without knowing or wanting to know about purification by fire. “For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp.” Heb. 13:11. The body is burned outside the camp. Let us go out to Him outside the camp; then we will have no doubt that the fire is for those who believe. For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God—with us. There, outside the camp, we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. Usually, people remain inside the camp, and this is probably the reason they are not familiar with the fire that consumes the sacrifice outside the camp. If we look around at other Christian groups and assemblies and examine the conditions there, I think we will find many things that are unable to withstand the fire, but which nonetheless need to be burned. More often than not, preachers impose the law of tithing on their congregation. This is a burden that neither the Holy Spirit nor the apostles lay upon disciples. Where is tithing spoken about in the New Testament? Does this belong to “the whole truth,” to “biblical teaching,” to “the full gospel” or to some of the other phrases that people throw around? The apostles did not burden the brethren among the Gentiles with anything other than these obligations: that they abstain from fornication, from meat of suffocated animals and from blood. Tithing is not even mentioned. The New Testament requires not only a tenth, but a total sacrifice; it requires even our own life. We are just stewards over our possessions. We are not even our own, far less do we possess the things which seem to be ours. Consequently, those who burden their congregation with tithing place them under the Levitical priesthood. But our priesthood is not according to Aaron; it is according to the order of Melchizedek. When leaders who call themselves pastors, apostles, preachers, etc., hang a collection box on the wall with “Tithing for the Lord” written on it (or use some other method of pressuring people to tithe), this is actually a violation of a person’s personal liberty. They function just like the Levitical priests—despite the fact that that order of priesthood became obsolete more than 1,900 years ago. Is that biblical? Heb. 7, from verse 5. Do you want to get to the root of evil? Then look into the human heart. There you will find envy and every evil thing—all of which the fire would consume if only people would endure it. Jesus had nowhere to lay His head. Clearly, He did not receive tithes from anyone. But if you look closely at those who do accept tithes, you will probably find that they have an abundance of soft pillows on which to rest their heads. Not only that, you will discover many other things that indicate that their hearts are as far from the fire as East is from West. In spite of all this, they strive to outdo one another in proclaiming, “Here we have the whole truth!” “Here we are truly biblical!” “Here we have the full gospel!” In other words: “Here is Christ!” The Scriptures warn us against heeding such voices. Luke 17:23. Woe to those who keep their sword from blood, for in all this there is abundant flesh to slay.Johan O. Smith