GOD'S FIRE AND THE REMNANT FACTOR

GOD’S FIRE AND THE REMNANT FACTOR

            God’s fire came down upon Mt. Sinai as if to consume the whole mountain and the people quaked and feared and made promises to God that whatever He said, they would do. But when all was said and done there were only two of the people that were there that day that lived to cross over into the Promised Land.

            God’s fire fell in Elijah’s day and consumed the sacrifice and the people all said, “The Lord He is God.” But Elijah fled anyway, in spite of that mountain top experience. Ahab and Jezebel were still alive and in control and Elijah felt very much alone. This one was going to come back and bite him, he was quite sure.

           

            Elijah complained to God that he was the only one left, but God assured him that He had 7000 left in Israel that had not bowed the knee to Baal.

            GOD WATCHES OVER HIS REMNANT PEOPLE AND HE KNOWS WHO THEY ARE.

            In the days of King Solomon, God’s fire fell upon the sacrifice and His glory filled the temple so that the priests could no longer stand to worship in His presence. It was on that glorious day that God made His famous statement:

            If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chron. 7:14

            It was also on this day that God promised that His name would be in His house forever and that His heart would be there perpetually if Solomon would walk before God as his father David had done. But as a follow up to those promises God also told Solomon that if they forsook His statutes and followed after other gods, then He would uproot them from their land and cast them out of His sight.

            The question is this: On that day when God’s fire fell and his glory filled the temple, did He know that Solomon would apostatize and the nation would go after other gods. Yes, God knew this was going to happen but He showed up anyway. Why? It is because of the remnant factor. God knows that with every revival, even a revival where fire falls from heaven, most people will cool off and fall away… but there will be a remnant that will be faithful and they will walk in the Spirit of the Lord.

            Isaiah cried out in his day and Paul quoted him saying: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved; for the Lord will execute His word upon the earth, thoroughly and quickly.” And just as Isaiah foretold, “Except the Lord of Sabaoth (heaven’s armies) had left to us a posterity, we would have become like Sodom and would have resembled Gomorrah.

            It is interesting that when the Two Witnesses are killed and left in the streets of Jerusalem in Rev 11:8, God’s wonderful and holy city will once again be called spiritually “Sodom and Egypt.”

            This is because, as we can see at this moment in history, the kingdom of the antichrist is being built right in the heart of God’s land simply because Satan wants to reign in the place of Christ. So he is preparing a great delusion that everyone will fall for except God’s Remnant people who obey Him and who tremble at His Word and live by His Holy Spirit.

            God knows His remnant people. He knows those who remain faithful to Him long after the fire has fallen and the apostasy has taken place. He knows those who separate themselves unto Him… who walk in obedience to His Word and who live by His Holy Spirit.

            There was a massive move of God in the 60s and 70s as a cultural revolution to the hippie culture with its free sex, drugs and rock and roll and out of that move of God the Charismatic movement was born. So it is out of that move of God that the most vibrant parts of the church are alive today and on the mission fields of the world.

            But we are also witnessing a great falling away as the fire of God has silently morphed into the fire of men and Satan has infiltrated the movement just as he has in past generations so that we have a generation that has abandoned the warnings of Bible prophecy… they have created a self- centered “Christian” culture where worshipers have become Rock stars and worship is worshipped and obedience is no longer required and the gospel is being watered down so that no one wants to talk about the blood of Jesus and the cross of Jesus and very few people actually want to deny self and take up their cross and follow Him.

            Christianity has been turned into a comfort zone… a demilitarized zone rather than a battle field where soldiers of the cross are engaged in the rescue of souls. Today we don’t want anyone to rock the boat or to question if we are really on the right path. We no longer ask God if our worship is pleasing to Him, because we have made our worship to be pleasing to ourselves. We now worship ourselves worshipping God… and we make big claims that we are His remnant people even as we make our trips to Rome to seek shelter in numbers… to wonder after the Beast and to take our place in the coming global religion of the beast.

            But God has a remnant! In every denomination and in a thousand places that people ignore, God has a remnant that has not bowed the knee to Baal. We cry out for God’s fire to fall on us again, but that fire must first of all be built in our hearts by God because He no longer dwells in temples made by man.

            Today there is a whole lot of strange fire in the church. It is as though the larger body of the church is actually lining up to worship the beast and His image. Preachers are no longer shouting the warning. The prophets are for the most part doing parlor tricks. They prophesy smooth sailing as in the days of Jeremiah and they want to hear peace and safety rather than the warnings of the lone prophets that really hear from God.

            Christianity has become big business today, built upon church growth schemes and prosperity teaching. The masses give, in order to get, and they repeat the mantras of the New Age and choose the spirit of Satan as he imitates Christ for they no longer understand the issues that are dividing the wheat from the tares.

            Would it shock you to know that almost the entire church along with its seminaries have been infiltrated by globalists and diverted away from prophecy and other fundamentals of the faith? Would it shock you to find out that we have been lulled into complacency, not just by accident, but by design?

            People of the church today don’t even realize that we are in a spiritual war of epic proportions and that truth and righteousness is literally being swept right out from under us. We are satisfied to warm the pew and to maintain our rituals and to keep everyone comfortable and happy as long as they pay their tithes and keep the lights on and meanwhile we have lost the heart of a soldier and we no longer feel the urgency of the Spirit of God.

            But God has a remnant factor. He has those who have not bowed the knee to Baal. He has those whose hearts burn within them with the fire of the living God. They are not satisfied with a set of dead doctrines and traditions, but they are being moved by the very Spirit of God to enter the battle and to draw a line between what Satan is doing and what God is doing in the world. They are moved only by the Spirit and Truth. And in their worship they know that worship must be accompanied by obedience because worship without obedience is merely lip service. Spirit and truth cannot be separated.

            “But an hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. John 4:23, 24

            It is not enough to have the “Truth.” For many claim to have the truth but do not have the fire of the Spirit burning in their hearts. Likewise it isn’t enough to have the Spirit, for without the truth Satan will sneak in and steal our hearts unawares and we will end up serving self and the world and even the antichrist because we had not a love of the truth.

            So that which Jesus said 2000 years ago is equally urgent in our day. God is seeking for a remnant people who worship Him both in Spirit and in Truth.