R. A. Torey
1856-1928

Fire Consumes
In Ezekiel 24:11-13 we are told of the consuming power of fire, the fire of judgment that will consume the filth and dross of Jerusalem. The baptism of fire consumes. In fact, it cleanses by consuming; it burns up all dross, all vanity, all self-righteousness, all personal ambition, all ungovernable temper.

We had once at the Bible Institute in Chicago a young woman who was much that a Christian should not be.When we heard she was coming, all of us in authority thought she never should have come to the Bible Institute .I thought so when I heard she was coming, for I had known her in the school from which she came, and I Knew she was one of the most unmanageable scholars they ever had in the school. She was stubborn, willful,proud, quick-tempered, boisterous,loud, and pretty much everything a girl ought not to be.

When I heard she was coming to the Bible Institute, I said, “So- and -so coming to the Bible Institute! What in the world does she want at the Bible Institute?”

Her uncle was one of the best friends the Institute ever had, so, out of consideration for her uncle, we admitted her.

Now we require of every student in that Bible Institute that some definite work to save the lost should go hand in hand with Bible study; for Bible study,unless it is accompanied with actual work for the salvation of souls, will dry up a man’s soul quicker than almost anything else. We required the young women to go into the tenements, the homes of the poor and the outcast.One afternoon this girl had been visiting on Milton Avenue and Townsend Street, two of the poorest streets of Chicago. After a time she became very tired with climbing up and down the stairs, and going in and out of the filthy homes; so instead of returning to the Institute she walked onion a very rebellious frame of mind to Lakeshore Drive, the finest avenue in Chicago along the shore of the lake.As she passed by those magnificent mansions, she looked up at them with an eye that danced with pleasure, and thought, This is what I like. I have bad enough of Milton Avenue; I have had enough of climbing stairs and going into tenements. This is what I like, and this is what I am going to have.She came back to the Institute and went straight to her room, still in a very bitter and rebellious frame of mind.The tea- bell rang before the battle was over and she went to the table and took her place and sat down There at the treatable the fire of God fell right where that girl was sitting. She sprang from her seat and rushed over to a friend at another table, threw her arms around her and exclaimed, “I am a volunteer for Africa!”

The fire of God in a moment burned and burned and burned, until that young woman was so changed, her actions so changed, her views of life,her tastes, her ambitions, her very face so changed in a moment, that when her old friends saw her and heard her,they could hardly believe their own eyes and ears.

Later on she went back to that same school in Massachusetts where she had been such a hindrance, and with burning words poured out her heart to the girls there, and with mightily power led them to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.Is not that what we need tonight-afire that will burn up this pride of ours,this selfishness of ours, this vanity of ours, this worldliness of ours burn up all these things that hinder the world from coming to Christ because we make men think Christianity is unreal?You women with unconverted husbands, is not that what you need-a baptism with fire, transforming your life and clothing it with beauty, so that your husbands will say “I must have what my wife has”?

Fire illuminates
Often times when in Chicago I look off toward the northwest of the city. Suddenly I see the heavens lit up, then they grow dark again, then they are illuminated once more, then darkened.The great foundry doors had been opened and shut and this light in the heavens was the glow from the furnaces.

Fire illuminates, but no fire illuminates like the baptism “with the Holy Ghost, and with fire”. When a man is baptized with the Holy Ghost,and fire, truth that was dark to him before becomes instantly as bright as day. Passages in the Bible that he could not understand before become as simple As A-B-C. Every page of God’s Holy Word glows with heavenly light. A baptism with fire will do more to take the infidelity, skepticism and false doctrine out of a man than any university education, Many a young fellow comes out of a theological education more than half an infidel;but the great day comes when that half infidel preacher is baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire, then his doubts and his questionings and his criticisms go to the winds.

Many an untaught or half taught man has so wonderful an acquaintance with the truth of God that men who are scholars sit at his feet with profound astonishment, because he has been illuminated with the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire!

Take the case of this girl again. I was away when the event described happened, and the first thing I heard when I returned was what had taken place with her.

I was going from the men’s side of the institute and was passing between the church and the women’s department when this young girl turned into the gate and met me. She looked up into my face and said,“Professor Torrey, have you heard ?”“Yes Jack, I have heard”, I said (By the way, that is an indication of her character that she should be called Jack) “I have heard what has happened”.

Then she began to pour out her soul. She fairly danced on the sidewalks she told me. I knew for once what it meant to dance before the Lord! Then she closed about this way: “One of the best things about it is that the Bible is anew Book. The Bible used to be just the stupidest Book I ever read, and I didn't believe it was the Word of God at all. I did believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, because your lectures compelled me. But the Bible was a stupid Book. But oh, now God is showing me such wonderful things in the Bible.”

Now be honest. Are there not some of you tonight who profess to be Christians, to whom the Bible is a stupid Book? If you would tell the honest truth,would you not rather than the Bible? You do read the Bible because you think you ought to, but you get no enjoyment out of it. A baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire would make the Bible a new Book; glory would shine form every page.

Fire Makes Warm Arm Glow
You stand before a furnace door,behind which is a glowing fire. You have in your hand a bar of iron; it is cold, black and forbidding. There is no beauty in it. But you take that cold,dark, forbidding bar of iron and open the furnace door and thrust it into the glowing fire. Soon it is warm then it becomes red-hot and glows withmarvellous beauty. Now you have thecold bar of iron glowing with fire.You and I are cold-oh, how cold weare! The Lord Jesus takes us andplunges us into the fire of the HolySpirit. We begin to grow warm. Soonwe glow - glow with love to God, glow with love to Christ, glow with love to the truth, glow with love for perishing souls.

The great need of the day is me nand women “on fire”. Brethren, we need in the pulpit ministers “on fire”.What cold men most of us preachers are! Orthodox enough, it may be, and we present the most solemn truth with great force of reason,great beauty of rhetoric and most convincing eloquence. Our audiences sit and admire our strong preaching,but they do not repent of their sins. Why not? Because we are not “on fire”. We convince the intellect, but we do not melt the heart.

But put a minister who is “on fire”in the pulpit-Wesley was such a man,White field was such a man, Charles Office was such a man - put a man“on fire” in the pulpit, and the audience will melt.

We need that kind of people in the choir as well. What beautiful choirs we have nowadays. Why, they sing almost like angels. People sit there admiring them, but nobody is converted by their singing. But when we get a man “bonfire” to sing, or a woman “on fire” to sing, something is brought to pass.

That is what we need in our Sunday school classes. We set young men or young women to teach Sunday school classes; they know the lesson capitally and study all the latest “helps”, and make the lesson tremendously interesting; but the boys and girls sandmen and women in their classes are not converted because the teachers are not“on fire”.

Oh the need in London more than anything else is a baptism with fire on the minister, a baptism with fire on the elders, a baptism with fire on the deacons, a baptism with fire on the choir, a baptism with fire on the Sunday school teachers, a baptism with fire on the personal workers, and a baptism with fire upon the men and women in the congregation.

We sang a hymn just now, praying that the fire of God might fall binomial Conference Hall tonight. If it does, London will be shaken.

Fire Imparts Energy
Men of science tell us that every form of energy can be transmuted into fire, and that given fire, you can generate any form of force or energy.When a baptism with fire comes,then comes power. That was the principal manifestation at Pentecost.The fire of God fell, and with the energy of that fire men went out from the Upper Room, and three thousand people were converted. A man takes me to his factory. He says, “This machinery is the best in the world.” He takes me down into the engine room and says, “Look at that great engine; it is so many horsepower. There is power in that engine to move every wheel in this great factory.”

Then I go back to the factory and look around. There is nothing doing at all. “It is very strange,” I say. “Did you not tell me that this was the best machinery in the world for this purpose, and that the engine downstairs could move every wheel in the factory? Well, I notice the connections are all made, and everything is in gear, and the lever miscarried the right way, but there is not a wheel moving in all the factory. Whatis the matter?”

“Don’t you know” he says. “Come downstairs, and I will show you. ”He takes me down again to the engine room and throws open the doorand says, “Look in there.” Lo! there is no fire in the firebox.

I go off to the railway. There is agreat engine standing on the rails. I amtold it is the finest engine that was everturned out from the locomotive works.It can drag a heavily freighted train upa hundred-foot grade. The engine hasbeen coupled onto about half a dozenunloaded cars.

I look at the engine and say, “What did you tell me? Can it draw a heavily loaded train up a hundred- foot grade? Then will you please explain something to me. That engine has only six empty cars behind it. The coupling is made,the throttle is open, yet it is not moving,cannot pull a car; yet you say it can pull a hundred. What is the matter?” I am taken on to the engine, the door of the furnace is thrown open, and when I look in I see there is no fire inthe firebox. That is what is wrong. Friends, I go into churches today. Oh, what beautiful organization I see,what magnificent architecture, what eloquent preaching I hear, what marvellous singing! Yet not a wheel inthe whole institution is moving for God.What is the matter? There is no fire in the fire box.

What we need is the fire of God inthe firebox. And, thank God, the promise is, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.”

Fire Spreads
Nothing spreads like fire.

I remember hearing some years ago,before I went to live in Chicago, about an old Irish woman who had a little shanty in the city, with a little shed back of it in which she kept a cow. One night while milking her cow, the cow suddenly kicked and knocked over her lantern. The lantern fell on a wisp of straw, which caught fire and set the shed afire. The shed set the shanty afire,and the shanty next to it caught fire,and the shanty next to that, and the onenext to that. Soon the fire leaped over the south branch of the Chicago river to the east side. On and on it swept. In forty-eight hours it had cleared an area of one mile wide and three miles long. There were but two buildings left in allthat section of Chicago.

Fire spreads. If a fire is kindled here tonight, it will sweep all over London, all over Great Britain and Ireland.

That night I spoke of at the beginning of my sermon in Chicago, astranger from London came to hear me preach. He came downstairs inresponse to my invitation and told us. “I am just in Chicago today fromLondon, and I want this baptism of fire.”

He got it! When he left the church he went to his room and wrote a letter to the Bible class of which he was a member in London. The teacher read it to the class. The fire of God came into that class. About two weeks after he had sent the letter, he got word from London that the fire which fell in Chicago had been kindled in that church in London. Nothing spreads like fire. Do we not need the baptism with this fire today?