Jehovah fire brings down walls

On March 11, 2005, fire erupted about 2:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon at 13 S Main St., in a building home to The Other Bar. “As firefighters sprayed water onto the front, back and top of the building, the smoke continued to billow out, covering nearly the entire block”[1] Fifteen downtown lots were involved and ten owners constituting fifteen businesses displacing 200 employees.

Twenty-four additional fire departments across the region responded to help. Late in the afternoon, more help arrived with two Kansas National Guard helicopters that dropped water from area lakes. Eight other law enforcement agencies came to offer assistance. Firefighters worked through the night and into the weekend to ensure the fire would not spring back. All the walls that came down in Fort Scott were 140 years old. Tradition, history and money were lost.

Spiritually speaking, the fire of the LORD brings down walls. Hanging onto traditions of men and how things have always been done keeps us bound in the “storming stage” and going nowhere. Anything not grounded on the Word of the LORD Jehovah and His love for us will eventually come down. This is a lesson the whole body of Jesus Christ must take to heart, for until we can love one another and start working together in teamwork to win the lost, our churches are merely fragmented body parts secluded behind closed doors.

One community of believers came together to put on a dramatic evangelistic presentation— the Judgement House[2]—that brought hundreds of people to accept Jesus Christ when they were shown hands-on consequences of their choice. It began with one lady who, in 2007, caught the vision; the flame turned her church of forty people on fire; the fire grew until 160 people in a neighboring town in western Kansas caught the vision to do things differently.

But, only three churches’ leadership agreed to help. It was the body of Christ, the people, representing fifteen churches who got involved because they saw the flame of the fire. Over three nights, youth, from elementary to college age, and adults caught the fire until 700 people walked through the nine dramatic stations; some in the drama were saved.

Of the fifteen churches involved, thirteen pastors missed out—because it had never been done before or was not their idea. More counselors were needed; the lines were long for the few who answered the call.

Jehovah fire brings down facades and reveals the hidden heart

Webster’s dictionary says that a façade is the front of a building, also any face of a building given architectural treatment, a false superficial or artificial effect. The Miller’s Used Furniture interior was exposed to the elements when the façade was blown off by the wind in the Fort Scott, Kansas, fire.

The shaking winds and the fires will come. What will they reveal? John 3:20 says that everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light because his deeds will be exposed. None of us ever think we are doing evil, so to speak, but are we living a superficial life? It is sin—a façade. Are we wearing a mask trying to cover up the “real me?” Do we know the real me? Have we taken the time to know ourselves and who God is? We can ask God to reveal that to us and He will show us how to remove those masks, as a choice right now, before the winds of the Holy Spirit have to force us to make a choice—and everything we are is exposed to the whole world.

Willa Cable’s Jehovah fire

Willa’s story is priceless about what a fire exposed in her life and marriage. She survived an abortion her mother refused to have even though her father pushed her mother down the stairs to try to make it happen. At age thirteen, a Sunday school teacher led her to Jesus with John 3:16 by helping her put her name in it to make it personal—“for God so loved Willa.”

After she married Charles Cable, she found bitterness masking and binding her soul, until she went to a seminar where the words of her Sunday school teacher surfaced, “Your heavenly Father loves you.” Finally, she was able to forgive her earthly father even though he was not there, and her life changed. Throughout the mountains and valleys of their lives, she and Charles reached out to others. They were on one such mountain when one of their lowest valleys descended upon them.

“Willa, you and Charles’ house burned down!” The phone call came when they were at their daughter’s house.

On the way home, a song came to Willa’s mind and she sang, “This world is not my home. I’m just a passing through.”

Charles told her, “I’m glad you can sing at a time like this. I have one for you. Does this mean I don’t have to wash that picture window anymore?” They laughed.

“If only one person comes to know Jesus because of this, it will be worth it all,” Willa told her family.

A young couple had been going to a Bible study Charles and Willa had been conducting. The young man had been hurt by “Christians.” Throughout this ordeal with the fire and all the people helping the Cables, he witnessed the love of Jesus. Their pastor also told him, “A true

Christian with the love of Jesus in his heart will not knowingly hurt anyone.”

Two months later, the couple accepted the LORD and they were baptized.

Before the fire, the Cables’ daughter and her husband planned to adopt a little Korean girl. Cheri, an ultrasound technician, had charts of conception and birth dates in her office. One day, she called her mother crying, “You will never guess what I just realized. Do you know what day Gentry was conceived?”

“No, when?”

“The day of the fire.”

We have to ask ourselves, “What would come out of our heart if we were to lose all our possessions as Willa and Charles did?” Doubtless, the fire of the Holy Spirit was at work.

Jehovah fire connects Lamb’s hearts

The fire that brought down Willa’s and Charles’ house connected hearts for eternity. Less than one month after the fire in Fort Scott, on April 2, 2005, Joshua Israel Lamb and Elisha Kalen Lamb were born. These two precious little boys were joined together at the chest, sharing one heart. They lived only hours. Their parents Larry and Melanie faced a tremendous trial as they believed God for a miracle; they set Fort Scott on fire in the spirit while the actual fire was going on. They demonstrated God’s love by giving, in faith, a book Love—the Greatest Thing in the World to over 8,300 people. They stuffed each book with their story and testimony of God’s love. In the funeral bulletin, Melanie wrote:

Death has been swallowed up in victory by the Lamb of God. Our baby lambs came following in His footsteps to bring a message of Love, of Hope and of Faith. God gave them a mission to accomplish and they fulfilled His purposes with honor. For all of the hearts they brought into His arms during their lives and from now on, they are noble, little heroes. Honor them with us in carrying on their love and their lives through the Spirit of Life. Carry with us the message they came carrying, the message of God’s love.

[1] Jason E. Silvers, “Picking up the pieces,” The Fort Scott Tribune, 120th year, No. 63, (March 16, 2005), p. 1.

[2] For more information see www.judgementhouse.org. One script is of victims from a house that burned down. The script used in this Kansas town was of an automobile accident and the choices and resulting consequences of the people involved. Satan and Jesus are not played by local people, but are sent out by Judgement House.