STRANGE FIRE

Dare we even ask the question?

Is it possible churches and believers are offering up strange fire unto God?

Fire is metaphoric for the anointing, the presence of the Holy Sprit.

Strange fire is defined as unauthorized fire not sourced in God and offered to God in ways He did not prescribe or approve.

More and more we see troubled ministers try to create a facsimile of anointing of the Holy Spirit with talent and personality, borrowing techniques from the secular and pagan.

Some Bible scholars even make the case that Nadab and Abihu (Aaron’s sons) took the fire from pagan altars into the temple. In their case God sent the real fire and consumed them. He called their fire, “Strange Fire.”

Taking strange fire is telling God, “I don’t have to do it like you said. I can do it better my way.” It’s a bit like they think they can blackmail God into accepting their erroneous act for the sake of not embarrassing the people observing the event.

How many leaders have pleaded with God to not expose their sin because it would do so much damage to the church?

So often it seems men arbitrarily re-interpret God’s Word to endorse their actions, and then try to convince God that’s what God really meant in the first place.

A congregation will not always sense the lifting of God’s anointing right away. Leaders can become very skilled at audience control so that it can even appear anointed. But that façade cannot be sustained. Soon the audience will know something is missing, something is wrong.

Absent the Holy Spirit’s moving upon the hearts of the people, frauds in the pulpit resort to human tactics to impact an audience. Some church leaders will continue to allow musicians to minister because they are so skilled—all the while knowing the musician has a spiritual problem.

I watched over a period of years one famous international radio speaker who had once stunned and moved audiences with anointed preaching of the Word. When he sensed that power leaving, he resorted to bathroom humor to shock the audience and then tried to use wordsmithing skills to put a holy face on the message.

The end result was empty altars.

One friend attended a meeting where an evangelist noted for leading audiences into hilarious laughter began his message with a story about how he had come to the pulpit with his fly unzipped. Of course the audience laughed and the meeting was off in high gear.

I just saw a “gospel” music video on a Christian music network in which a pretty young lady dressed in body-hugging sweater and tight slacks had the spotlight while singing a song of worship to God. Legs apart, knees bent she suggestively thrust her pelvis to the beat of the song. How many viewers received sexual imagery from what was supposed to be Christ-exalting worship?

A young man hosted a Christian network program that featured a teenaged girl doing an interpretive dance to a worship song. At the end of the dance his first words expressed his amazement at how beautiful the girls was—sensuality had stolen the worship away from God..

Strange fire!

Old fashioned? Maybe so, but so are the Ten Commandments and so are Scriptural admonishments to live a holy life.

The altar has become old fashioned.

Why has the altar disappeared in so many churches? One reason is that it is the office of the Holy Spirit to draw the sinner to Christ. Human suasion is never enough.

When a minister, absent the Holy Spirit’s anointing on his ministry, tries to give an altar call and nobody responds, that minister quickly decides not to do that again—it’s too embarrassing.

So he stops giving altar calls and gives ambiguous suggestions. I was in the service when the pastor of one large, influential church closed the service this way:

“Bow your heads and close your eyes.
“Now, if you’d like to feel a little closer to Jesus, lift your head and catch my eyes with yours.
“That will be my signal to pray for you.
“I don’t want to embarrass you.”

What a slap on God’s face to even suggest that repentance before an Almighty God is an embarrassment to be avoided.

This is not a light thing that God will ignore—let alone bless—when ministers whose lives and motives defy God lead a congregation in music or worship or ministering God’s Holy Word.

Right now I’m remembering an old altar chorus, “Oh, Lord, send the fire just now…” a dangerous prayer for anyone playing with strange fire.

Are we willing to pray, “God, please give us the spiritual discernment to recognize strange fire in our own lives?"

Do we have the courage to ask God to expose strange fire no matter where, no matter who?