Bill Johnson - Baptism of Fire
God, I must have more of You; I was born for more than what I’ve seen. God, I must have more, and I will pay any price. I’ll be the guy who’ll pay any price, and I would pray that I would. I got to where I would actually wake myself up in the night praying, «Thank You, thank You, thanks, thanks. You’re nice; you’re nice.» Looks like a happy group. I stay up late every night; I realize it’s a bad idea every morning. I’ve never been held hostage, but I’ve been in a group text: «Meat is murder; quick, let’s eat the evidence.» When a woman says «What?» it’s not because she didn’t hear you; she’s giving you a chance to change what you said. Oh yeah, my favorite childhood memory is having energy. My dog just ate a wild mushroom. We just spent $140 at the vet’s office for them to tell us she’s high. I must have one more, just one more. Just burned 2,000 calories; it’s the last time I leave the brownies in the oven while I take a nap.
Opening your Bibles to Psalms 51, the 51st Psalm. Just a quick update on Benny; we’re so thankful for all the prayers and the loving support we’re getting. It means a lot. I can’t go anywhere in town but that I hear who’s praying, and that’s a privilege. Even at the sports show yesterday, where they had lots of guns—that’s where you’ll find me, where they have lots of guns. I was there and heard people were praying again, so we’re very, very thankful. Her white blood cell count has gone down, so we need that to reverse, and she got shingles this last week, so that’s got to go as well. We’re declaring that mountain to be removed, so yeah, appreciate the prayer time and worship time today.
All right, you guys ready? Psalms 51: I have no one—no one is responsible for your faith; only you are responsible. You go home; nobody’s responsible for our individual measure of faith that we live by. Nobody has that responsibility, only we do, and it’s something we can attend to. We can’t create faith, but we can make ourselves available for what God does. Great faith comes from great surrender, not from striving. There’s a yieldedness that results in great faith. In every season, I try to expose myself to fellowship with believing believers, as compared to fellowship with unbelieving believers. Unbelieving believers— they’re going to heaven, they’re just kicking and screaming the whole way. Fellowship with believing believers, staying exposed to the testimonies. Every staff meeting this last week was just—I wish somehow we could literally film the meeting so that you could see, because it’s impossible for us to give you an ongoing record—let’s try to fix this—of what’s happening. Impossible to share everything, but we’re working at learning how to share more, and so hopefully we’ll get that fixed soon. But staying exposed to the testimony, staying exposed to the teaching of the Word of God.
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time on YouTube, just picking different people that I love and care for who always have a refreshing word and just turning them on. They’ve got a 10-minute word, a five-minute word, a 20-minute word—just listen to them as they provoke me to greater faith and enhance my relationship with the Lord, and it’s just a regular part of my life.
So Friday, I was doing what I normally do, and a friend was reading from Psalms 51, and when he read these verses, «Create in me a clean heart,» and then it ends with, «Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,» when he read those verses, something happened to me. Something left my heart. I’ve tried to learn to recognize when God is on something because there’ll be a response here. The Eternal One touches something; eternity in me leaps, and it was kind of that moment. I realized that in this particular Psalm—I—flashback is too strong of a word, but I began to think back to my early years in the Lord. I grew up in a wonderful home, committed to the Lord, but I was not on fire in any way; much more nominal. My parents would bring in Mario Murillo to preach, and Mario had this way about him that he would basically say, «Jesus is either Lord of all or not Lord at all,» and that was exactly what I needed to hear.
I was so inspired; I’d grown up seeing people older than me—this is now when I’m 18, 19 years old—always seeing an older generation in love with Jesus, but I hadn’t run into many my age. At that particular time, what Mario was stirring up was a generation that was so passionate and in love with Jesus that it provoked me. It honestly just provoked me; I couldn’t shake it. Even though I was somewhat nominal in my walk, I would travel anywhere in Northern California where Mario was preaching, just to hear him draw the line in the sand again and declare what had to be done. The power of his message, the miracles that would take place, the deliverances, the healings, the conversions—all of it just provoked me.
And then around him were all these young people of that day who were just in love with Jesus, and it did something to me. It marked me. I remember one Saturday night, I was in bed and got up and went into the bathroom in the front part of our house, living with my parents. I went into that bathroom and just met with the Lord. There were no flashing lights; there was no audible voice; there was none of that. I had been a spectator in the things of God for months, and my membership to the Observation Team was about to expire. I became frighteningly aware that I was at a moment, and I went into that bathroom and met with the Lord. I said, «Okay, You can have everything, everything.» I didn’t know if I would ever own a possession; it didn’t matter to me. I didn’t care.
I knew one thing: I didn’t want to preach, that’s for sure. The two things I hated the most were talking in front of people and writing, so I’m glad the Lord honored that request of mine— that’s absolutely true. Number three would be reading; I hated reading. So writing, reading, and talking—other than that, that was good. But that night, I remember it like it was yesterday. I had such a change of heart that He graced me with, or I went from a non-student to a student.
That next morning—literally that next morning—with my Bible open, ready to take notes, I was in. This is now my life. Part of what became an anchor of stability for me, a life source for me—obviously the whole Bible—but this particular Psalm was critical for me. It was something that I prayed on a somewhat regular basis. I want you to read these four verses with me. Look at them: Psalms 51; we’ll start with verse 10.
«Create in me a clean heart, O God; renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence; do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me by Your generous spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You.»
Let’s read those four verses once again: «Create in me a clean heart, O God; renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence; do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me by Your generous spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.»
Friday, when this passage was being read, what pierced my heart— I was actually getting up from the table, and the YouTube video was playing. I was getting up from the table; I forget, I was going to go grab something in the kitchen, and he said, «And then I will teach transgressors.» That phrase just cut me instantly. I became unusually aware of the hour that we live in, where you can lose your job by saying a man can’t have a baby. It’s insanity; it’s not material for mockery; it’s a target for reformation—it’s insanity.
Well, we’ve got to show mercy—yes, mercy to the person, not to their thinking. Love never requires agreement. I have some stuff I want to do in the next few weeks; I’ve actually had a couple of things happen to me in the middle of the night over the last few weeks where I feel like the Lord is wanting to give us some instruction on things that we can do. So, I’m promising you—now I have to keep my promise.
Then, what I teach transgressors. The prophets warned us that there would be a generation that would not know their right hand from their left. The prophets warned us that there would be this horrible, sobering season where people call evil good and good evil, and that’s the moment that we’re in. The worst thing you can do is bail and panic, or maybe the one thing worse is to try to fix the problem on their level. When you play on their playing field, then they’re going to win because they’re experts in that field.
When you pray and you come in the Kingdom, then you have an opportunity to bring transformation. I’m not wanting to preach about them to you right now; I’m just saying this is what came to my mind in what I consider to be a divine moment. Watching, my friend is talking, and he says, «Then I will teach transgressors,» and I knew instantly that the holiness—can I say the Baptism of Fire—that was released in verses 10, 11, and 12 was what positioned David, repositioned him to teach transgressors his way.
Now, this Psalm is an interesting song because it’s the Psalm of David’s repentance after his sin with Bathsheba. The mistake would be to think that we become poor in spirit by thinking badly of ourselves and becoming overly conscious of our history of sin. First, of all, David came to a place of brokenness through repentance because of his sin, but the sin wasn’t necessary for the place of brokenness. The place of brokenness is the place where the believer lives; it’s not a place of self-criticism. That’s counterfeit; that’s not humility.
There are many who will keep in mind their history of sin; they keep it in mind to feel humble and feel bad about themselves. Anytime we give place to an awareness of past sins that have already been covered by the blood of Jesus, anytime we overly give attention to those things, we are welcoming false humility. We are welcoming a humility that is not established in the nature and character of Christ, because it actually denies His forgiveness. Just because you feel bad doesn’t mean you’re humble. Some of the greatest acts of humility in the Scripture are Jesus in Luke 4, declaring before any miracles have been done, «The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.» He makes this bold confession of what’s about to happen. Real faith is exhibited in humility; presumption isn’t.
Real faith is exhibited in humility, presumption. In that moment, I became unusually aware of something that only God can make you aware of—there is something about purity, about holiness that brings a strength into our voice that only God can bring. It doesn’t come through strategy or any of those means that have value; it comes because there’s been a Baptism of Fire. John the Baptist declared, pointing to Jesus, «Behold the Lamb of God,» and he goes on to say, «He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and with fire.»
I’ve already mentioned my turning my heart completely at 19 to serve the Lord. I’m going to fast forward now to my days in Weaverville. I remember in February of 1995, I went to Toronto; I heard God was doing great things there. I was very hungry. We had seen the Lord use us, and miracles started breaking out in Weaverville in 1987— we’re very thankful for that particular season and direction, but we were just aching for so much more.
I remember flying to Toronto, and there was a great outpouring happening there. I just wanted to see and participate, and it was confusing, but sometimes God’s not the author of confusion. You’re only confused because of your position; He’s not confused. Sometimes you have to repent your way into the right mind so that you’re not confused.
Anyway, I was in this moment, and I don’t want to go into that very much, but it was wonderful. There were 5,000 people there, and the presence of the Lord was so strong; it helped if I closed my eyes because then I wouldn’t be offended by everything I was seeing. When I closed my eyes, I would become aware of the same presence we were having in our prayer meetings at home, and that’s how I knew—I recognized the work of God—not by approved manifestations, but I recognized it by the presence; and that’s the safest way to measure anything.
But you have to become familiar with Him to be able to recognize Him. You have to know, «I’ve seen this before.» So in this moment, I was there for four or five days, six days, whatever it was. I knew I had seen something that was to mark the rest of my life. I flew home and began to pray. I started to ache for all the things I had read about in here.
You see the city of Ephesus completely transformed in Acts 18, where they had moved from miracles to extraordinary miracles, and where cloth could be sent from Paul’s body and deliverance would take place in healing; in this moment where every single person in Asia heard the gospel—every single person. There’s this movement that became so impacting that all of culture itself—they even got believers planted in Caesar’s household and in the leaders of government. There are believers in those places and it’s just extraordinary what’s happening.
I began to ache for these things to happen—the miracles, of course, that we see in Scripture, the deliverances, the conversions. I started praying; I started praying when I got home from Toronto. I said, «God, I want more of You, and I want more at any cost. I’ll pay any price.»
It wasn’t an emotional prayer; it wasn’t like, «You know, I feel really good, so let me pray the scary prayer.» It was calculated because I know He tends to collect on His debts. It was a prayer that said, «God, I want more of You, and I will pay any price.» I was praying, and I became obsessed—if you can be a Christian and obsessed—maybe it’s focused. I became focused—very focused. Morning and night, driving down the street, «God, I’ve got to have more.»
This hunger for Him was almost like a volcanic eruption. It wasn’t, «Oh, it’s time for me to pray.» It was, «I cannot help but pray.» God, I must have more of You; I was born for more than what I’ve seen. God, I must have more, and I will pay any price. I’ll be the guy who’ll pay any price, and I would pray that I would; I got to where I would actually wake myself up in the night praying.
I didn’t wake up to pray; I woke myself up because I was praying in my sleep. Unless you discount that, I remind you that Solomon made the most incredible decision of his life in his sleep. It’s when the Lord showed up and gave him a choice; you can have anything you want. It says it was a dream, and the Lord gave him that chance because He trusted him. He had gone to bed night after night with such resolve of purpose that he could trust his decision while he was sleeping.
It’s possible for you and me to go to bed never leaving purpose, never leaving the why that we are alive, so that when those divine moments come, covenants are made, and history has changed—the course of history has changed. So I would pray this in the night and in the day.
In October, we’ve got from the first of February to the end of October. Dick Joyce, who was a dear friend of ours back then, he’s now home with the Lord—he was a dear friend of ours, a prophet. He helped us more than any other visiting minister. He would call to check up on me with such strength and encouragement to me and to our family. I met him through my parents.
Dick was in Weaverville. We had these meetings for several nights, and some of the craziest things I’ve ever seen happen, happened in that meeting. God is a God of order, kind of like a maternity ward; He knows what He’s doing, and we don’t. People say, «Well, how do you know that’s God; or is that in the Bible?» I said, «In Psalms 115, God does what He pleases.»
So one guy got mad; he got mad and left the meeting. I didn’t know until later. He got mad, left the meeting; the Lord met him in the parking lot and laid him out in the parking lot in the snow by himself. He could not move; nobody is there to help him. I have to admit, I really got happy when I heard that story; I’m not sure my motives were completely pure, but to this day I enjoy that show, and I’m sticking with it.
I had a friend I was praying for that night, and his name was Tom. I said, «Thomas, I feel like God’s going to touch you,» and he was really struggling. I just wanted to encourage him. I said, «I feel like God’s going to touch you. It could be in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night,» and I said specifically, «It may be 3 o’clock in the morning.»
In those meetings, you go to bed very late; it’s the eternal gospel—like one of our elders here told us years ago, «The only reason we bring our watch to church is to see if the date changed.» There was a season when that was absolutely true; maybe we have that problem again.
So I went to bed, of course late, and then, if you can imagine being as completely asleep as possible to as completely awake as possible in a millisecond—that’s what happened to me. I’m completely asleep, and all of a sudden, it’s like a thousand volts of electricity are going through my body, and I have no control of my arms, my legs, or anything. The only thing I have control of is my head, and I turn my head and it’s exactly 3 a.m.
I said out loud, «You set me up.» You know how when you’re in a God moment, He makes sure you remember what you need to remember. Why would I think of my prophetic word to my friend? I wouldn’t, except He needed me to understand this was part of the journey. You set me up, and so I’m laying there in this condition, with a thousand volts of electricity.
I’m not saying this has to happen to anybody else, because He is a creative God who customizes what each person needs, but I will say everybody needs a baptism of fire. I will say that; and not just one 20 years ago.
I laid there with no control of my arms or my legs; I’d grip my arms like this, my legs would become more violent, I’d grab my legs—my arms—and I’m trying to process what’s going on. I know it’s a setup, but I’m trying to figure it out, and I can’t get control. The more I try to get control, the worse it gets, and I realize I’m in this divine moment.
Then I see scenes that pass before my eyes: I saw me trying to teach in front of our church family up there in that condition, and I realized there’s nobody there that’s going to believe this is God—no one. The next scene, I’m standing in front of my favorite restaurant in town, realizing I’m going to be mocked by the entire city. There’s nobody there that’s going to believe this is from God.
I remember that Jacob wrestled with an angel and limped the rest of his life. Sometimes the mark that God puts on our life from a divine encounter looks like a blemish to everybody else. You’ve got Mary, the mother of Jesus, without a husband, the mother of the illegitimate child. You’ve got things that happen in people’s lives; they’re not shortcuts to fame and all this other stuff; it’s the opposite.
What was in my heart—I’ve not been interested in the other stuff. When I said yes to the Lord, I didn’t know if I’d ever owned anything. I just didn’t care. So I’m laying there; tears were going down the sides of my face onto the pillowcase. I had maybe 20 or 30 minutes into this; I’m seeing these scenes, and I still have no control. I’m trying to process what’s going on, and I realize He’s been reminding me this entire time.
Son, you said more at any cost, and I could tell in that moment that He was asking for my right to dignity, to my personal dignity. After laying there for 20 or 30 minutes in this, I don’t know what else to call it—the Baptism of Fire is what it felt like: after processing this, I said, «Okay, You can do anything You want with me, if I get You in the exchange. If it’s true that I get more of You, do whatever.»
I laid there for the rest of the night with this presence, this power. It was not pleasant, but it was glorious. I got up that next morning—I don’t always tell this part—it continued the next night and the third night. A couple months later, we’re here, and the Holy Spirit begins to move.
I started to see things—a lady back over here, born deaf, all of a sudden she had never heard anything in her life, starts pointing to the speakers in the ceiling; she can hear. We start seeing things I’ve never seen in my life—somebody’s paralyzed for 38 years gets up out of her wheelchair over here.
A thousand people leave—good people. I have no animosity or criticism at all, but if you want to kill a pastor, pastors are weird. You just have to understand, pastors are weird. We can have people who hate us leave the church, and we’re sad—that’s weird.
These were good people, many of them friends that I knew. Some said, one family in particular, «We know this is God, we just can’t do it.» They left. I know it’s hard to imagine, hard to explain, but for me it wasn’t hard. It wasn’t hard; it was the part of me that would have cried in pain in that season that died in the previous season.
There’s something about a Baptism of Fire that purifies what’s important. All of a sudden, there are certain things that are not on your list anymore. Sometimes we experience pain only because we care about the wrong things. Sometimes we experience anguish of heart only because it’s the wrong set of values, and there’s something about the fiery presence of God that purifies.
I said it changes everything; everything has changed. I feel like I ache for our country; I ache for our state. I see this craziness that is going on—absolute insanity. And then I hear the Lord in Psalms 51: «Clean heart, clean heart, clean heart.» Then, because of purity and power, there will be something on your words that will change the environment that you live in.
The power is not there because you’re brilliant; the power’s not there because you’ve got a great strategy for transformation. The power’s there because you said yes in the secret place when the burning one came and purified hearts. The Lord is so creative; He sets the stage for us uniquely, individually. Where He may touch me in a certain way, He touches you in a different way.
His method makes no difference to me; it may be an insight in the Scripture; that may be it for you. The outcome’s what’s important: is that the burning one has touched these lips, is that the burning one has ignited this heart, is that the burning one has made it possible for me to live with clean hands and a pure heart and be the living offering for a nation that is desperate, looking for anchors.
Don’t misunderstand—we’re not the anchor, but He is. I ache for this; then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted. That’s what I ache for. When I heard that Friday morning when that was being read, I couldn’t get away from that—that’s it right there. I feel like His word is drawing us into a divine encounter where there’s a fresh baptism available for whether you’re online, at home, in your office, or you’re in this room; it doesn’t matter to me.
The Lord is setting us up for something that is beyond. I needed something beyond my control; I needed—for me it was vital—to give up my right to look good, my right to be reasonable, and to die at that place and say, «If I get You in exchange, You can do whatever You want.»
What I’m going to do this morning, I want to ask you to stand if you would. That’s what I want to pray for; I want to pray for just a fresh baptism of fire. I don’t know what else to pray. We’re somewhat restricted in some of what we’re able to do just because of our back-to-back services, and I feel like it’s a God-given restriction, so I’m not complaining.
But tonight, we’ll be more open-ended. Kind of what I want to tell you is to come ready for a baptism of fire. It doesn’t have to happen here; for me, it was in the middle of the night at home. It may happen here; we’ve had it happen here to a number of people.
But the point is to be hungry for more than what you have; I don’t care what you got—there’s more. There’s more; there’s more. It’s vital that we live in a place of hunger and surrender, but also thankfulness—thankfulness for what God’s done, thankfulness for what He’s given us.
So I’m going to ask you just to take a moment to pray. I’m going to ask you to lift your voice and just make your request of the Lord, then I’m going to pray for you, and we’ll dismiss. All right, go ahead, lift your voice and pray.
It would be so cool, Father, for there to be not only a baptism of fire individually, but corporately—that You would do something to us as a church family. No distance whatsoever, whether it’s the other side of the planet or it’s on the second row. I pray there will be such an immersion in the presence and the fiery heart of God. God, we invite You, turn Your eyes of fire on us.
I pray that You would ignite in us the kind of passion that brings purity and decision, purity in lifestyle, purity in impact. Let us be a people of true wisdom and power. I pray this for the glory of God.
My prayer is that God would set you up—He set me up; He set me up, that He would set you up. Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.
Sing it again: «Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.»
Father, I ask for the gift of hunger to be released to us as a family—the gift of hunger that changes everything. I do pray for a corporate and individual baptism of fire, and we ask that You would do so to empower our words in a fresh way to see a nation, to see a state turned. We pray this for the glory of God.
I want to ask you a question real quick: is there anyone here who has never made a commitment to be a disciple, a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ? I believe that God brought you here for that reason. If that’s you, and you’d be willing to say, «Bill, that’s me. I don’t want to leave this building until I know I’m at peace with God,» put a hand up real high where you are. I want to just make an agreement with you wherever you are. If you’re online, put it in the chat, because we’ve got pastors that’ll help you—anyone at all?