I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
More than 9 million soldiers were killed in World War One. Whole battalions of human beings lost their worth as they were forced to march into certain death, or else incinerated by flame throwers in their trenches. In World War Two, an entire people group was almost destroyed systematically as millions of Jews were thought not worthy of life. It is a dark time when that happens but that is what awaits those who are not baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire. They will be destroyed and discarded like so much chaff, not because God is cruel, but because he is holy.
That is actually a large part of the gospel, Old English for good news. Because God is holy, he must punish sin but because he is also merciful, he saves his elect from the fire. All human life belongs to God and we have no right to decide who lives and who dies. God does have that right as Creator and Sovereign Lord. We are governed by people who claim the authority to make these decisions but we are subject to the God of the universe and his will is mightier than the world’s.
Dear Lord, thank you that you are in control of a seemingly out of control world. We submit to your sovereign will as you govern this world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Pastor Brad Boyer
Cape Community Church