³ He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire; whose winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. The Lord separates the wheat from the chaff, the precious from the vile. The wheat is the words of life that he has spoken to you, which words are grafted into your heart to form Christ within; the chaff is your selfish, sinful nature of its lusts, affections, and pride, which after separation is then burnt to oblivion by the devouring fire and everlasting burnings of Jesus, the pure word of life, which is fire. The 120 disciples of Jesus were baptized with tongues of fire in Jerusalem during Pentecost. Acts 2:3. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the baptism of fire, the baptism of death:

• he winnows (separates) the spiritual elements of your heart: the engrafted words that He has spoken to you vs. the remaining sinful nature.
• he purges (cleanses) your heart;
• he gathers the wheat into the barn, which is to preserve all the changes to goodness he has made in your heart; and
• then he completely burns up all the remaining sin and evil desires (the chaff) in a man's heart.

From the Word of the Lord within: "God treads down and throws away all that is unholy; there is a dying. One actually dies to enter the camp. You are raised to a new life, not just an imitation; He is one with us and ever-present. These are not paths of glory traveled lightly." This death is not a figure of speech.

Thus creating a cleansed, purified individual, to then enter the kingdom of God. Until man obtains the purifying, miraculous grace of God to cleanse his heart, he cannot be in the company of, or pleasing to, God. This baptism occurs after a man has crucified his selfish, sinful nature on the inward cross of self-denial. This baptism by fire, the baptism of death to the selfish nature of man, is the one baptism needed: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, Eph 4:5. Because we hate our life, we have no fear of losing our life; for when we lose our life, we save our life, the new life, the eternal life of God.

Gentle reader, do not think this baptism of death is strange for: 1) the Lord told us several times we must lose our life to save our life; 2) the baptism of death and subsequent burial is stated in the scriptures, and 3) we are advised to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual service and worship, Rom 12:1.

This is end of your fleshly self, as Christ comes and slays the residual spirit of Satan within you by the brightness of his coming, by the words of his mouth, by his crushing the head of Satan under your feet. Rom 16:20,Gen 3:15. This is the final judgment; the true baptism of the Holy Spirit into the death of Christ; the sharing of his death. Jesus is then resurrected in you to be your true Lord; 2 Cor4:14,Col2:11-12,3:1, Eph 2:6; who orders all your words and deeds, which deeds are works to show the love and power of God to the world.

The journey of faith to the baptism of death, (which is the one true baptism), is not a short journey, nor is it accomplished by asking or praying for it; it only occurs after you have: waited on the Lord, heard his many spoken-to-you reproofs, consistently obeyed his many commands that you hear him speak to you, died daily on the inward cross of self-denial, suffered many trials and tribulations, and endured with patience and persistence to the end.

This baptism by fire is performed by Jesus, who comes to those who have crucified their lusts and affections on the inward cross of self-denial; the appearance of Jesus to perform the baptism of fire is the second coming of the Lord and the Day of the Lord for those crucified.

• "Is not my word like a fire?" says the Lord; "and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" Jer 23:29
• For our God is a consuming fire. Heb 12:29
• But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap;
  And he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi [priests], and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness. Mal 3:2-3
• But to you who fear my name, the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings, and you shall go forth and leap and skip like calves released from the stall. Mal 4:2

The second coming and the day of the Lord are one in the same personal experience, which occurs for all men in every generation. For those who are crucified to spiritually die on the inward cross of self-denial, the second coming occurs as the Lord appears after the baptism of fire has burned all the remaining sin in them. Their body dies in this baptism of fire and death, but the believer is raised (resurrected) with Christ and translated into the kingdom of God. Though raised with Christ to live in the heavens, they still walk the earth as a new creature together, in union with the Lord. Those not crucified, experience the day of the Lord when they die; and when they see the Lord, they will be terrified because they will know how evil they are.

The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?*
He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, he who despises the gain of oppression, who keeps his hands from taking bribes, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil;
He will dwell on high; his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; bread will be given him; his waters will be sure.
Your eyes will see the king in his beauty; they will behold the land that is very far off. Isa 33:14-17

* In his writing, The Holy Truth and People Defended, Isaac Penington, who dwelled in the kingdom in union with Christ and God, partially explains why preparation is necessary before entering the union and sitting down with Christ in heavenly places:

"For there is a state of discipleship, by which a man hardly knows a settlement, so much as how to watch with Christ rightly and constantly [the first stage of perfection]; but it is a great matter to be able to dwell and abide with Him [Christ]. None can do this, but he that can dwell with devouring fire and everlasting burnings for the pure word of life is a fire, and he that sits down in the heavenly place in him, must sit down in that fire [with union; the second and permanent stage of perfection.]" From the Word of the Lord within: "the fire won't hurt you."

William Dewsbury, another kingdom-dwelling, early Quaker, also left a testimony of the terror in the Day of the Lord and his baptism by fire:

I was slain and baptized, and lay as a little child under his heavenly chastisements; as soon as ever my soul was brought to this, in my humiliation. Oh! then, the dreadful judgment was taken away, and the book of life was opened unto me, and the Lord spoke comfortably to me, "I have loved you with an everlasting love;" and I was made a Christian through a day of vengeance, and of burning as an oven; and the haughtiness and pride of man in me was brought low.

The following is from kingdom-dwelling, early-Quaker Stephen Crisp's The Necessity of a Holy Life, which gives us further first-hand knowledge of the baptism of fire:

"There is no coming to obtain this baptism, but by sinking down into what will slay you, what will kill you. But there is such a shifting to save one's life, there are so many twistings and twinings of people to save their lives, that at last they lose them. But no one can ever find life that is eternal, but those who are willing to be given up to the dead, and submit to this baptism — that is, by the Holy Ghost and by fire. Only such come to life; they come to the resurrection. For you never knew any that died this death but that they rose again; it is as impossible for death to hold any one down that is buried in this baptism,* as it was impossible to hold Christ down, when he was in the grave. The same power that brought again our Lord Christ from the dead, the same power it is that quickens us, while we remain in these mortal bodies, after we have sustained this death and crucifixion."

(* Your resurrection is very quick, and your burial is not in this physical world.)

Like the resurrection of Lazarus, after you undergo the baptism of death, the Lord calls you by name to "come forth."

From the Word of the Lord within:

• People have not heard that you can lose your life.
• You must lose your life to save it.
• To endure on the cross is dying.
• One dies on the cross.
• All dies when the Word is touched.
• It is an honorable thing to die for the Lord.
• By fire does he make those truly seeking to be his body.
• The fire will not hurt you.
• They lost their life by me taking their life.
• Christ is actually resurrected in every person that comes to Him and obeys Him repetitively.
• You have not experienced grace until you have been raised with Him.
• With persistent and faithful obedience, you too will be raised.
• Many have come; many will come; many will be raised.
• You are raised to a new life, not just an imitation; He is one with us and ever-present.
• The new life is as radically different as a man who has lived underground his whole life, suddenly coming above ground to see the sun, the sky, the plants, the animals, the wind, the stars.

From George Fox's Journal:

You must have fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. 1 Pet 4:12-13
If you will reign with him, you must suffer with him. 2 Tim 2:12
if you will live with him, you must die with him. 2 Tim 2:11 (there must be a "dying daily.")
And if you die with him, you must be buried with him, Rom 6:4
and being buried with him in the true baptism, you also rise with him. Col 2:12, Eph 2:6

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