THE FOURTH PART: THE PATHWAY OF THE LORD’S RECOVERY

God-ordained Way
Message Five—Being Burned by the Fire of the Lord’s life
to Be a Passionate Lover of Jesus

Scripture Reading: Luke 12:49-50; Rev. 4:5; 5:6; 2 Cor. 5:14; S. S. 8:6-7; 2 Tim. 1:7

I. “I have come to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am pressed until it is accomplished”—Luke 12:49-50:

A. Through His death the Lord released Himself into man as the fire of life to burn on the earth—12:49:

1. This fire is the impulse of the spiritual life, an impulse that comes from the Lord’s released divine life; the Lord wanted to see all men filled with His fire, that is, His life—12:49.

2. To cast fire on the earth is the release of the glory of his divinity to burn the people of the earth—12:49.

3. the Lord Jesus was pressed and constrained, longing to be baptized with the baptism of His death; because there was a powerful, unlimited, and eternal life concealed in Him; the Lord wanted it to be released; He wanted the fire to burst into flame—John 19:34.

4. He needed to undergo physical death, to be baptized, that His unlimited and infinite divine being with His divine life might be released from His flesh; His divine life, after being released through His physical death, became the impulse of His believers’ spiritual life in resurrection—1 Cor. 15:45b.

B. The death of Christ also judges the satanic system of the world, casts out the ruler of this world; the world and its ruler, Satan, are powerless to hold us—John 12:31.

C. Through the death of Christ people are drawn to Christ; the death of Christ on the cross has a lovable attraction; such an attracting, the proper attraction, is not a matter of stirring up people emotionally; it is an attraction that comes through the release of life—John 12:32.

D. His physical death released the fire of His divine life to become the impulse of His believers’ spiritual life in resurrection; the resurrecting Triune God as the sevenfold intensified Spirit indwells the believers as their divine and mystical fire to purify them, supply them, and be their indwelling fuel for the carrying out of God’s economy to propagate Christ as the seed of life—Luke 12:49-50; Rev. 4:5; 5:6; Exo. 3:2, 14-15; Zech. 3:9; 4:10; 2 Chron. 16:9a; cf. Gen. 17:1.

II. Christ as the sevenfold intensified, life-giving Spirit today is a burning fire within us; we must enjoy God as the fire of love to love Him and others with His love, to be the crazy lovers of Jesus—Rev. 4:5; 5:6; 2 Cor. 5:14; S. S. 8:6-7; 2 Tim. 1:7:

A. On the seashore of Tiberias, the Lord Jesus asked Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” Today in this generation the Lord Jesus does not need a lot of young people to work for Him; He needs many young ones to love Him desperately; today the Lord Jesus needs many crazy lovers—John 21:15-16.

B. We must allow the Lord to burn us and to keep us burning continually by fanning our God-given spirit into flame—2 Tim. 1:6-7.

C. To love the Lord is to appreciate Him, to direct our being toward Him, to open to Him, to enjoy Him, to give Him the first place, to be one with Him, to live Him, and to become Him—Matt. 26:6-13; Mark 12:30.

D. Throughout the past twenty centuries thousands of precious lives, heart treasures, high positions, and golden futures have been “wasted” upon the Lord Jesus; to those who love Him in such a way He is altogether lovely and worthy of their offering; what they have poured upon Him is not a waste but a fragrant testimony of His sweetness—Matt. 26:8, footnote 1.

E. Today’s generation is a generation of pleasure lovers; people today love all kinds of entertainment, amusement, and worldly enjoyment; we are not like this; we are the crazy lovers of Jesus; we need to be crazy with Jesus for the whole earth; our destiny is to love Jesus, to be crazy for Jesus—2 Tim. 3:1-5.

III. “We all have been burned by this fire; we have been brought together by this fire; and now we are burdened that this fire would burn many others. When the concealed glory of Christ’s divinity was released, a divine fire was cast on earth to burn the whole earth. Let the fire burn on; no one can stop it”—The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory, pp. 11-12.

 

Ministry Excerpts:

THE LORD CASTING FIRE ON THE EARTH

Verses 49 and 50 of Luke 12 are two of the most precious verses in the Bible. They are also among the hardest verses to understand. If we were to nominate four or five of the most puzzling passages in the New Testament, these two verses would be among them. In verse 49 the Lord said, “I have come to cast fire on the earth.” The Lord told His listeners that He came to the earth with a specific purpose—to cast fire on the earth. What is this fire? This is not a fire that is produced by ordinary matches, but a fire that is apart from the earth. For example, I may throw my hymnbook on the chair. This means that the hymnbook was not on the chair but was thrown onto it from elsewhere. The Lord said that He came to cast fire on the earth. Where did this fire come from? It came from heaven. What is this fire? The book of Hebrews tells us that our God is a consuming fire (12:29). In many instances in the Bible, fire signifies God’s life. His life is righteous and holy, and it is like a fire.

The Lord Jesus said that His purpose for coming to the earth was to cast God’s life on it and to give God’s life to man. At the time He spoke such a word, man did not have His life. This is why He said, “How I wish that it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49). This means that He wished that man would receive His life that very day. Yet man did not receive it, because “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am pressed until it is accomplished!” (v. 50). The Lord told us that the fire was not kindled because He still had a baptism to be baptized with. This is puzzling. Was not Christ already baptized? Luke 3 clearly records that He was baptized. What does baptism in this verse mean? In reading Romans 6 and Colossians 2, we see that this baptism signifies death. For Christ to say that a baptism was still waiting to be accomplished meant that He had not yet died. Luke 12:50 does not say that He had not been baptized; rather, it says that there was a baptism which still needed to be accomplished. Why did such a baptism need to be accomplished? To accomplish something means that there is a goal. Suppose you want to do a certain work. After you have done the work, you have accomplished it. Christ’s death was for the purpose of accomplishing one thing—God’s purpose. Since He had not yet died, the fire was not yet kindled.

These two verses tell us that Christ came to cast God’s life to the earth and to give man His life. Before Christ died, man had not received that life. After He died, man received this life. Without His death, this life could not have been released, and man could not have received it. Why did Christ have to die before man could have His life? The reason is provided in the following words: “How I am pressed.” The word pressed in the original language means “squeezed, constrained.” Christ said that He had a baptism to be baptized with, and He was pressed, or constrained, until it was accomplished. Why was He constrained? He was the divine life itself, and He was like the fire. This life filled the universe and was not bound or restricted by time and space. His life was omnipresent and omnipotent. It was everywhere and existed at all times. This life was like a fire. It kept on spreading; no one could lock it up, and no place was big enough to contain it. (Conferences, Messages, and Fellowship (3), ch. 76)

LONGING TO BE BAPTIZED WITH THE BAPTISM OF HIS DEATH FOR THE RELEASE OF THE GLORY OF HIS DIVINITY

While the glory of His divinity was concealed by the shell of His flesh or humanity, the Lord Jesus was pressed and constrained, longing to be baptized with the baptism of His death for the release of the glory of His divinity. In Luke 12:50 the Lord said, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am pressed until it is accomplished!” The Greek word translated pressed can also be rendered “constrained.” The Lord was constrained in His flesh, which He had put upon Himself in His incarnation. He needed to undergo physical death, to be baptized, that His unlimited and infinite divine being with His divine life might be released from His flesh. The Lord Jesus therefore desired to be released from the constraint of the shell of His flesh. He refers to this release in John 12:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” If the Lord Jesus as a grain of wheat had not died, He would have remained the same. But He fell into the ground and died, and that death released Him from His human shell. His incarnation caused His divine glory to be concealed in His flesh, but through His death His glory was released for the producing in His resurrection of the many grains, which become His increase as the expression of His glory.

THE RELEASE OF THE GLORY OF HIS DIVINITY
BEING TO CAST FIRE ON THE EARTH

The release of the glory of Christ’s divinity was to cast fire on the earth. In Luke 12:49 He said, “I have come to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled!” This fire is the impulse of the spiritual life, an impulse that comes from the Lord’s released divine life. To cast fire on the earth is to burn the people of the earth. When Christ was baptized with the baptism of His death on the cross, the glory of His divinity was released. From the time of His resurrection a fire has been burning on earth. This fire started from Jerusalem, and then it spread through Judea and Samaria to the uttermost part of the earth. Today this fire is burning all over the earth—in America, in Russia, in Romania, in Poland, in Brazil, in Africa, in Australia, in New Zealand.

In the book of Revelation we see that Christ is the Lion-Lamb; He is the Lion to defeat Satan and He is the Lamb to redeem us (5:5-6). Revelation 5:6 says, “I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders a Lamb standing as having just been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.” These seven eyes, the seven Spirits, are “like a flame of fire” (1:14; 2:18). Elsewhere we are told that the seven Spirits of God are “seven lamps of fire burning before the throne” (4:5). Christ today is a burning fire. We all have been burned by this fire; we have been brought together by this fire; and now we are burdened that this fire would burn many others. When the concealed glory of Christ’s divinity was released, a divine fire was cast on earth to burn the whole earth. Let the fire burn on! No one can stop it. (The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory, msg. 1)

ALLOWING GOD AS THE CONSUMING FIRE
TO BURN US SO THAT WE MAY BURN OTHERS

In order to spread the Lord’s recovery in this country, we need to be impressed with two points. The first point is that God is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29). According to the Scriptures, the fire that burned on the order was not made by man but came down from heaven (Lev. 9:24; 1 Chron. 21:26). Moreover, on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples as tongues of fire (Acts 2:3-4). In order to truly experience Christ, we should be ready to be burned by God as a consuming fire.

In my youth I heard messages telling us that Christ was our food, drink, wisdom, strength, and power, but I never heard a message telling us that Christ was a consuming fire. In John 6 the Lord revealed Himself as the bread of life (vv. 35, 48), but in Luke 12:49 the Lord said, “I have come to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled.” The fire that the Lord cast on the earth was himself. When we received Christ, we received Him not only as food and drink but also as a consuming and burning fire.

In order to burn others, we need to be burned. We who are seeking the Lord and following Him must be burning and aggressive toward others. However when we speak to others, we tend to be overly gentle and indifferent concerning their response. Instead, what we speak should trouble, disturb, and burn others. We must be “pests,” as apostle Paul was (Acts 24:5), by being burned. The more we are burned by the Lord, the more we will experience Him. If we think that we have had an experience of Christ but have not been burned, our experience may not be genuine. The genuine experience of Christ will cause us to become burning. We can be compared to an iron and the Lord to an electrical current. After the current passes through an iron, the iron will become hot enough to burn anything that contacts it. We need to check whether or not we are burning. If we are not, we need to be burned, and the only place where we can be burned is on the altar of burned offering. Just as the burned offering was consumed by the divine fire daily, we must be burned by Christ daily. (CWWL, 1964, vol. 3: “Miscellaneous Fellowships in Los Angeles”, ch. 1)

OUR NEED TO BE THE CRAZY LOVERS OF JESUS

I want to say again that you need to forget about outward correction, outward improvement, and outward activity. Always pay your full attention to the inner part of your being where Jesus is. Do not try to serve the Lord, work for Him, or do anything for Him. You have to look unto Him so that He would show you all His beauty, His sweetness, and His fairness. This will attract you to love Him. We should say, “Lord Jesus, to me You are so sweet. To me You are so loving and so lovely. Whenever I call on You, I have a sweet sense deep within my being.” We should have a love toward Jesus that is sweet to our inner sense. We should tell the Lord all the time, “O Lord Jesus, I love You.”

On the seashore of Tiberias, the Lord Jesus asked Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15). The Christian life is not a matter of work for Him or of serving Him. Forget about all this. Satan, the subtle one, would come in to beguile you by tempting you to serve the Lord. Today in this generation the Lord Jesus does not need a lot of young people to work for Him. He needs many young ones to love Him desperately. If you love Him for just half a day, you will be crazy. Today the Lord Jesus needs many crazy lovers.

Today’s generation is a generation of pleasure lovers. People today love all kinds of entertainment, amusement, and worldly enjoyment. We are not like this. We are the crazy lovers of Jesus. We do not care for entertainment, amusement, or worldly enjoyment. We are not for any kind of sport. Our sport is Jesus. Jesus is all the entertainment to us. Are you really crazy to such an extent?

Do not think that you need more teachings from the Bible. Do not think that you need some training about how to serve the Lord, how to preach the gospel, and how to work for the Lord. I am desperate to cause you all to be crazy lovers of Jesus. I have no burden to give you some new doctrine, some new message. I am burdened to make you all the crazy lovers of Jesus. I care for only one thing—that you have to love Jesus in a crazy way.

Every lover is a crazy one. If you are sober in your mind to love someone, your love must be false. We have a proverb that says, “Love blinds.” In a sense, I have the burden to blind you, not to make you so clear. When Eve and Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, their eyes were opened, and they became clear (Gen. 3:5-7). On the other hand, when Jesus came into Saul of Tarsus, his eyes were blinded (Acts 9:8). Love blinds. Do not try to be clear. You have to lose your sight. When Jesus catches you, you become blind to everything except Him. Today this generation does not need a lot of clear young people. It needs a lot of crazy young lovers of Jesus.

There is no other way for the Lord Jesus to take full possession of you. I cannot teach you to be like this. But I do know that if the Lord Jesus shows Himself to you with His beauty, His fairness, you will be fully taken over by Him. Then you will forget everything. You will be fully possessed by Christ. You should be crazy to such an extent that you do not have the consciousness that you are crazy. You are crazy without a sense of being crazy, but you have the full sense of Christ. This is the kind of person this generation needs for the Lord’s recovery.

Every continent needs such lovers. We need to be crazy with Jesus for the whole earth. Every place needs some Jesus-lovers. Do not care for your living, your destiny, or your future. Your destiny is to love Jesus, to be crazy for Jesus. Every city, every state, and every country needs a bunch of crazy young lovers of Jesus. If you all are such lovers, the number of attendants in your meetings will always be increasing. You all need to be the crazy lovers of Jesus! This is what today’s generation needs. (The Living and Practical Way to Enjoy Christ, ch. 3)