For the last 9 months, the Lord has been speaking to our House of Prayer in Arizona from the book of Jeremiah, and Isaiah chapter 1, about the approaching “fire of the Lord”. The hour is here. The Church in America (pastors, evangelists, apostles, teachers, prophets, young and old, women and men, Jew and gentile and black and native and… all who claim to be “in Christ”) is entering the forge of the Lord, with all of heaven, and the nation watching.

Some of us will come out of the furnace with spirits that are burnished bright; shining with His likeness. Millions of other believers will be radicalized by contraKingdom rhetoric; enflamed with nothing more than a raging self-seeking ethic that the Word of God warns us against.

Religious zealotry always looks promising to the flesh. But it is never what moves the Church from one age to the next. Consider the zealots of Jesus’ day. They subscribed to a very orthodox theology of God, and the scriptures. But their spirits, such as they were, were unprofitable for the Kingdom work that the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit were bringing to earth.

This historical parallel is essential to note. We live in an hour when many zealous individuals also verbalize classic, theological orthodoxy, and yet refuse to live under the reign of Jesus’ authority – marginalizing the blessings and warnings of the Sermon on the Mount, avoiding our daily (Luke 9:23) cross, and hence devoid of the Spirit’s baptismal fire. Consequently, the church elevates political power as an expedient end to prayer power, cultural dominion over humility before the Lord, and the temptation to live with a hostile, even violent spirit, rather than to learn the way of meekness.

Heaven has no use for a “Church” who has no use for the Son’s Sermon on the Mount. The Spirit will simply not release anointing upon a Church who isn’t walking crucified to “Christ”.

Heaven has no use for a Church who has no use for the Son’s Sermon on the Mount.

No. Classic, theological orthodoxy cannot be the sole, nor primary distinguishing characteristic of what constitutes “fidelity to the Lord” in this hour.

Nonetheless, it is a brusk, unbowed, militant, theological orthodoxy which is being spun, embraced and now normalized within our evangelical family in this hour.

It’s incumbent upon pastors and leaders to discern this deceitful perversion of Jesus’ Kingdom. It is a false way, that though it be filled with emotional, populist appeal, lacks the essential element that makes for Kingdom success: the crucified life. It is for this reason that the Lord is bringing His fire into our midst. His “burnings” are intended to purge the self-saving spirit from His Bride, while simultaneously beautifying the Christ-reliant, Christ-exalting resurrection spirit within His Bride.

This separation of the way of self, from the way of Christ, is a compulsory work of the Spirit. And it is the fire of the Lord that forges this element within the character of the Bride; refined, spotless, and pure – prepared to be presented to the Son. And it is for this work that the fire of the Lord is upon the “ecclesia” right now, in the fall of 2025.

Will we come to the Lord’s threshing floor and allow His fire to remove the endemic selfism from our ways, and spirits? Or will we “rise up” in the religious zeal of our own self-determined flesh in order to champion a crossless, politically empowered morality?

Every evangelical leader in America ought to be attuned to the intent of the Spirit right now, so as to help the people of God to…

A. Understand the nature of the cultural and internal conflict that’s upon them,

B. Understand the glorious nature of what the Lord wants to produce through the forge (ala. vibrant Christlikeness)

C. Understand how to help the people wholly submit to the purging/purifying work of the Spirit through this season.

A vow (not even a very popular, emotional vow) will not save the Church right now. Only finding His Presence, and bowing low before His unapproachable majesty will align us with our King. We can either be stirred to fervent determination (which will exit us from the forge of the Lord – a whole “other” story… [See Isaiah 1:28]), or we can stay in the fire, trust His heart for us, and submit ourSELVES to the deep, cleansing work of His fire. The Lord will ONLY bring resurrection power to one of these two places. Not the other. NOT the other.

Beloved. We don’t want a Christianity that has no resurrection power upon it. Only a cross will get us there. Not a sword. (Even if we do call it “the sword of the Lord”. It is not.)

We want bonafide New Testament Christianity. Not age-old, intertestamental religious zealotry. It’s vital that we learn to distinguish between the two.

Rising up in militant, nationalist opposition to their enemies brought neither Judah, nor Israel into revival. It brought them into exile.

Rising up in militant, nationalist opposition to their enemies brought neither Judah, nor Israel into revival. It brought them into exile.

The only way into the revival that the Lord has in store for His people is through the Christ-forging fire that the Lord is bringing upon His people.

Truth-be-told, the New Testament scriptures are clear: though He be enormously patient and compelling, should the covenant people of God steadfastly spurn the purging work of the Father, they can expect to be purged from the Father.

In real fear and trembling, I pray that more than a very small remnant will see the forge that’s upon us, and avail ourselves of it.

“The sinners in Zion are afraid;
fear seizes those clothed in falsehood:
‘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 oppressions,
He will dwell on high;
His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks.”
(Isaiah 33:14-16)

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JSB • September 13, 2025

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