Bill Johnson - My Baptism of Fire
The power is not there because you’re brilliant; the power is not there because you’ve got a great strategy for transformation. The power is there because you said yes in a secret place when the Burning One came in. Purified hearts—John the Baptist declared, pointing to Jesus, «Behold the Lamb of God!» He goes on to say, «He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and with fire.» 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 were very thankful for that particular season and direction, but we were just aching for so much more. I remember flying to Toronto, where a great outpouring was happening. I just wanted to see and participate. 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 too 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. I would close my eyes and become aware of the same presence we were having in our prayer meetings at home. 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.»
In this moment, I was there for four or five days, whatever it was, and 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 19, where they moved from miracles to extraordinary miracles and where cloth could be sent from Paul’s body and deliverance would take place in healing. This moment where every single person in Asia heard the gospel—every single person! There was this movement that became so impactful that all of culture itself was affected. They even had believers planted in Caesar’s household among the leaders of government. There were believers in those places, and it was extraordinary what was happening. I began to ache for these things to happen—the miracles of course that we see in Scripture, the deliverances, the conversions—and 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; I became obsessed. If you can be a Christian obsessed, maybe it’s focused. I became very focused, and morning and night, during the day, driving down the street, I thought, «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!»
I got to the point 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 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 had gone to bed night after night with such resolve of purpose that he could trust the 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 is changed.
So I would pray this in the night and during the day. October came; we’ve gone from the first of February to the end of October. Dick Joyce, who was a dear friend of ours and is now home with the Lord, helped us more than any other visiting minister. He would call to check up on me and was such a strength and encouragement to our family. I met him through my parents, and Dick was in Weaverville for several nights of meetings. Some of the craziest things I’ve ever seen happen happened in those meetings. God is a God of order, kind of like a maternity ward; He knows what He’s doing, and we don’t. People would say, «Well, how do you know that’s God? Where is that in the Bible?» I said, «In Psalms 115, God does what He pleases.»
One guy got mad; he left the meeting. I didn’t know until later that he got mad and left. The Lord met him in the parking lot and laid him out in the snow by himself. He could not move. No one was 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, his name was Thom. 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 the middle of the day or the middle of the night.» I said specifically, «It may be three o’clock in the morning.» Well, in those meetings, you go to bed very late—it’s the eternal gospel. 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, and may we have that problem again!
So, I went to bed, of course late, and 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 was completely asleep, and all of a sudden, it felt like a thousand volts of electricity were going through my body. I had no control of my arms, my legs, or anything. The only thing I had control over was my head, and I turned my head; it was 3 AM exactly. 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? So, 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,» I thought.
I was laying there in this condition with a thousand volts of electricity. I’m not saying this has to happen to anybody else; He is a creative God who customizes what each person needs. But I will say that everybody needs a baptism of fire; I will say that—not just one from 20 years ago. I laid there with no control of my arms or legs, gripping my arms like this. My legs became more violent; I would grab my legs and arms. I was trying to process what was going on, and I felt embarrassed. I could feel my face turn red; you know when your face flushes? I could feel that happening because I was embarrassed for myself. Benny was asleep, which was a miracle. It’s a waterbed, so there were tidal waves. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny at all then! I’m trying to process what’s going on; I knew it was a setup, but I couldn’t figure it out. The more I tried to get control, the worse it got. I realized I was in this divine moment.
Then scenes passed before my eyes; I saw myself trying to teach in front of our church family in that condition and realized there was no one there who would believe this was God. In the next scene, I stood in front of my favorite restaurant in town, realizing I was going to be mocked by the entire city. There was no one there who would believe this was from God. I remembered 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. Things happen in people’s lives that are not shortcuts to fame and all this other stuff; it’s the opposite. What was in my heart anyway? I’ve not been interested in the other stuff. When I said yes to the Lord, I didn’t know if I’d ever own anything. I just didn’t care.
So I’m laying there, tears going down the sides of my face onto the pillowcase. I’m maybe 20 or 30 minutes into this, seeing these scenes, and I still have no control. I’m trying to process what’s going on, and I realize He’d been reminding me the entire time: «Son, you said more at any cost.» I could tell in that moment that He was asking for my dignity, 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—it felt like that. After processing this, I said, «Okay, 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 the next morning; I don’t always tell this part. It continued the next night and the third night. A couple of months later, we were here, and the Holy Spirit began to move. I started seeing things—a lady back over here who was born deaf suddenly hearing for the first time in her life, pointing to the speakers in the ceiling; she could hear! We started seeing things I’ve never seen in my life—somebody paralyzed for 38 years getting up out of a wheelchair over here. Thousands of people left—good people. I have no animosity or criticism at all, but if you want to kill a pastor, please understand that pastors are weird. We are a weird group! 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. One family in particular said, «We know this is God; we just can’t do it.» They left. I know it’s hard to imagine and hard to explain, but for me, it wasn’t hard; it wasn’t hard. The part of me that would have cried in pain during that season 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 of the wrong set of values. 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.
Then I hear the Lord in Psalms 51: «Clean heart, clean heart, clean heart!» Because of purity and power, there will be something in your words that will change the environment you live in. The power is not there because you’re brilliant; the power is not there because you’ve got a great strategy for transformation. The power is there because you said yes in the secret place when the Burning One came in. Purified hearts—the Lord is so creative. He sets the stage for us uniquely and individually, and 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 a scripture that may be it for you. The outcome’s what’s important: that the Burning One has touched these lips, that the Burning One has ignited this heart, that the Burning One has made it possible for me to live with clean hands and a pure heart and to be the living offering for a nation that is desperately 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 thought, «That’s it! I can’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. 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.»