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By Andy Johnson | 5.2.2012 What if you spent years faithfully and earnestly praying for revival to come to your community, and then one day, seemingly out of the blue, God dramatically answered your prayers?
All across your city, every day people begin crowding into the church to hear the gospel from God’s Word. On the streets, in their workplaces, in classrooms and homes all over town, previously timid church members are faithfully declaring the gospel and fruit is coming fast. Lives are transformed, marriages are saved, and most of all, one after another God’s enemies are laying down the weapons of their rebellion and are taking refuge in his glorious and merciful Son.
What if all this happened in your own town, right in front of your eyes, in that other guy’s church, just a few blocks down the street from yours?
I suspect we all know what we ought to say in response, but the words of praise and joy are likely to get caught in the backs of our throats.
This has happened before. In 1839 Robert Murray M’Cheyne learned that a great revival had broken out in his church under a guest preacher while he was away on a months-long mission trip. When the Spirit of God seems to bless the ministry of others rather than our own, some pretty important things about the real nature of our loves become glaringly visible.
“DIOTREPHES, WHO LOVES TO BE FIRST”
Of course, this battle between envy and rejoicing is nothing new. The Apostle John writes about the issue in his third letter (3 John). There, in verses five to eleven, he introduces us to two men: Gaius and Diotrephes.
Gaius loves to welcome and support faithful missionaries sent out from other churches because he loves Jesus (vv. 5-8).
Diotrephes, well…not so much. Diotrephes refuses to welcome these workers from other churches for one simple reason: John tells us plainly that Diotrephes “loves to be first” (v. 9). He has no desire to see gospel work done unless he does it. He will rejoice in no fruit unless it’s his fruit. He will tolerate no competition. Diotrephes’ actions and attitudes are, John bluntly says, “evil” (v. 11).
Evil—that’s a strong word. And frankly what frightens me most about Diotrephes is that we’re not told of any lack of doctrinal orthodoxy to justify that label. There is no mention of heresy or inadequate views of Christ. For all we know, Diotrephes’ theology looked just right on paper. But his competitive spirit exposed his supposed love for the gospel as merely love for his own group, his own ministry—ultimately love for himself. Just like any other pagan.
THE NOT-SO-SUBTLE POINT
So here comes the not-so-subtle point of this article: Do not be like Diotrephes! Instead, imitate what is good, meaning the gospel-exalting, non-competitive spirit of Gaius.
But why is this such a big deal? Because not only your heart but the very worth of the gospel in the eyes of the world is at stake.
Listen, you can talk all day about how you praise God for the blessings of gospel prosperity in your church—and you should, to some extent. And yet there will always be a lingering scent of self-interest; it’s your church, after all.
But what if you genuinely praise God for the gospel prosperity in some other church, whether in another country or even (gulp) right across town? What if you demonstrate the same delight to see Jesus’ work held up and delighted in as a result of someone else’s ministry? If you do, that shows that you love Jesus and his gospel and his glory—not just your group, your club, your ministry, your church.
That’s why it’s so important that we cultivate an attitude like Gaius’ in our hearts and in our church members’ hearts. Our love for Jesus and for his glory may never shine brighter than when we rejoice in the progress of the gospel even when there isn’t the slightest chance of us getting any of the credit.
HOW TO CULTIVATE THE SPIRIT OF GAIUS
How can you cultivate this kind of spirit in your church and in your own heart? Here are a few ways.
1. Pray and Read
First, pray and read. Start by reflecting on passages like 3 John that show the unique glory of what we might call a “disinterested delight” in the prosperity of the gospel. And pray that God would grow in you a heart that loves to encourage gospel progress, wherever it happens and whoever it happens through. Why? Because you love to see Jesus glorified.
2. Model and Teach
Because revival speeds up the advance of Christ’s kingdom!
(Byron Paulus, Executive Director of Life Action Ministries, quoted in Revive magazine, Winter 2012, 3).
Revival, according to J. I. Packer is…
Revival is God accelerating, intensifying, and extending the work of grace that goes on in every Christian’s life!
Spiritual Revival
A RECURRING NEED IN CHRISTIAN LIFE
By Cornelius R. Stam
These lines are written at a critical time in the world’s history, when much is being said and written about revival. Many Christians are praying for revival; popular evangelists are doing their best to bring it about; leading periodicals, secular as well as religious, and even the daily newspapers, are discussing it, generally using such phraseology as “a revival of religion,” “a revival of religious feeling” or “a revival of religious faith.” Whatever the human failures involved, every true believer will thank God for the measure in which men are awakening to the need of supernatural aid in solving the grave problems that confront our generation.
WHAT IS SPIRITUAL REVIVAL?
But precisely what is true spiritual revival? This question is not too simple to ask while there are those who call almost any series of religious meetings a revival, while others confuse revival with the waves of religious feeling which sweep over the masses periodically and still others suppose that a revival is an ingathering of souls.
Actually a revival is simply a restoration to vigorous health. It relates to the living, not to the dead. The dead cannot be revived, but we do administer food and medicine to those who are faint or ill, in order to restore them to vigorous health. Thus spiritual revival is the restoration of ailing Christians to vigorous spiritual health.
A series of meetings may be used of God to produce a spiritual revival among His people, and such a revival often results in an ingathering of souls, but neither the series of meetings nor the ingathering of souls is in itself the revival. The revival is the spiritual restoration of believers.
THE NEED FOR SPIRITUAL REVIVAL
With individual believers, as with the Church at large, the need for spiritual revival is frequently not recognized until exceedingly low levels of spirituality1 have been reached. Actually, however, the need is almost continuous.
Physically most of us need to be revived at least three times a day. Hunger and weakness soon overtake us and we feel the need of food to renew our strength. Spiritually it is not less so, for “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Sad to say, however, we are by nature prone to neglect our spiritual welfare and lapse into carelessness and sin, so that repeatedly the need for spiritual revival and restoration becomes acute.
THE CAUSE OF SPIRITUAL DECLINE
Many feel that lack of prayer, failure to live separated lives, indifference toward the lost, etc., are the real causes of spiritual decline. These, however, are the effects, not the causes. The cause of spiritual decline today is always our departure from the Word of God in general and from the Word of God to us in particular. There lies the root of our spiritual ills, though comparatively few as yet recognize or acknowledge it.
With Israel it was departure from Moses’ law that constantly got her into trouble; with us it has been the departure from Pauline truth, for, remember, as surely as the dispensation of the law was committed to Moses, so surely was the dispensation of grace committed to Paul (Eph. 3:1-3) and those who have lapsed or backslidden, from his day until ours, have done so through departing from the truths committed to him for us.
In Paul’s epistles we find both the evidence and the tendency on the part of believers to depart from the path of blessing, and God’s diagnosis of the particular cause of the trouble. In every case the cause is rebellion against the apostle’s God-given authority and departure from his God-given message and program.
It was only a few short years after Paul had been sent forth with “the gospel of the grace of God” that the revolt against his authority began. The Galatians rebelled, followed the Judaizers and fell into the bondage of legalism. In his letter to them Paul takes almost two whole chapters to prove again his authority as “the apostle of the Gentiles,” calling upon them to examine thoroughly the certificate of his apostleship and warning them of the dangers of departing from his God-given message.
Dumbfounded at their sudden declension, he exclaims:
“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel” (Gal. 1:6).
And he adds:
“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Ver. 8).
Challenging them as to the result of their rebellion, he asks:
“Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me” (Gal. 4:15).
“But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another” (Gal. 5:15).
Mark well: the Galatian believers had lost their blessedness because of their departure from God’s appointed messenger and God’s appointed message to them.
Twice the apostle charges the Galatians with disobedience (Gal. 3:1; 5:7). But why? They had sought to obey more than Paul had commanded them. They were prepared to submit to circumcision in addition to the program he had, by revelation, outlined for them. And they had Scripture for their position too. Yes, but not Scripture rightly divided. Their return to Moses and the law was a repudiation of the further revelation given through Paul: “the preaching of the cross,” which was even then bringing the Mosaic dispensation to a close. Even the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church had recognized the Gentiles’ freedom from the law and had “written and concluded that they observe no such thing” (Acts 21:25). Thus obedience to the law now became disobedience to the truth and cost the Galatians their blessedness, bringing them into a state where they bit and devoured one another.
The Corinthians also rebelled and started rival sects among themselves, as though it were a question of who was right: Paul, Apollos, Cephas or Christ. Thus departing from the glorious revelation committed to Paul, the Corinthians fell into many other grievous errors and sins. The apostle therefore challenged them too as to his spiritual authority and warned them of the dangers of their heresy.
In Asia Minor, where the apostle had labored for “the space of two years,” the issue was again Paul and his message. In his second letter to Timothy the apostle had to write:
“This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me…” (II Tim. 1:15).
This does not mean that all the saved in the province of Asia—and there were many—were now lost, or even that they did not genuinely love the Lord. It means simply that they had turned against Paul as the one to whom had been committed the new dispensation, “the dispensation of the grace of God.”
These are but a few examples. The sacred record contains many more examples of spiritual declension since the raising up of Paul, and always the declension was brought about by a departure from one or more of the particular truths revealed through him: the truth of the “one body” and the sympathy for one another which this implies, or the truth of the “one baptism” with its death to the flesh and its identification with Christ in the heavenlies, or, perhaps, the truth of our standing in grace, with the resultant life lived for God out of sheer gratitude.
HOW TO ENJOY SPIRITUAL REVIVAL
When we recognize the fact that the old Adamic nature is still with us, it is easy to see why the most godly among us need spiritual revival almost constantly, for by that very nature we are ever prone to depart from the blessed teachings of the Pauline epistles.
“A true Holy Spirit revival is a remarkable increase in the spiritual life of a large number of God’s people, accompanied by an awesome awareness of the presence of God, intensity of prayer and praise, a deep conviction of sin with a passionate longing for holiness and unusual effectiveness in evangelism, leading to the salvation of many unbelievers. Revival is remarkable, large, effective and, above all, it is something that God brings about”
| Suspended on Prayer |
By T.M. Moore|Published Date: January 30, 2012
Revival
“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”
Matthew 21:22
Ministers of Scotland: Lectures on Revival VI
The Rev. Alexander Cumming, Minister of Dunbarney Parish
“Prayer is an ordinance remarkably suited to the exigencies of our fallen condition, because it tends to preserve in our minds a vivid impression of the divine agency. We are too apt to let our views terminate in the operation of secondary causes, and to forget that Almighty power to which they are indebted for their energy and existence; but when God suspends the communication of his benefits upon prayer, he compels us to recognize his providence in the economy of human affairs.”
Contemporary American Christians have become adept at relying on “secondary causes” in doing the work of the Lord. It’s why we run programs, tweak our liturgies, and organize our churches like businesses rather than flocks. We see ways of doing things that have worked in the world, and so we simply import them into the ministry of the church, forgetting that “God suspends the communication of his benefits upon prayer”. Certainly we will not realize the revival, renewal, and awakening we seek until we give ourselves at least as earnestly to seeking the Lord in prayer as we do to understanding the latest methodology or technology.
What are the greatest obstacles to prayer becoming a more prominent aspect of your own life? Of the life of your congregation?
To learn more about revival, order the book, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir, by Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge, from our online store.
Pastor to Pastor brings the insights of great servants of God from the past to pastors in our own day, to link our ministries with theirs in the grand tradition of building the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ
……Many Christians world wide are praying for Spiritual Revival to sweep across our globe. Some are seeing incredible revivals in their areas, such as parts of Africa, South America, Asia and Oceania.
—–But what does it take to experience revival where you are? First and foremost, Spiritual Revivals are not the work of human hands. Despite the advances in technology and media, man made programs do not generate nor guarantee Spiritual Revivals. They are the product of the Sovereign Work of God, but it is a Work that is done in response to the devotion of even one godly man or woman.
—–In 1867, an evangelist challenged a young man with the words,
“The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in
a man (or woman) who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.”
—–The young man heard that challenge and thought to himself, “I want to be that man!” That young man’s name was Dwight L. Moody who went on to preach the Gospel to 100 million people, build a Bible Institute and incite spiritual revival across two nations! An examination of Spiritual Revivals past will reveal that they are always born in the hearts of consecrated people.
—–God looks into the hearts of people. He will use any man or woman whose heart is “wholly consecrated to Him”. You and I must ask ourselves, ‘How important to us is it to be used of God?’, for He will not use wishy washy, double minded, fence sitting or worldly minded Believers. We must choose where we want our lives to count … either for God or in the world … the value of which D.L. Moody described as ‘dust on a balance’.
—–What is God looking for? He is looking for a person who is willing to fulfill His conditions for revival as outlined in 2 Chronicles 7:14.
———-“and (if) My people who are called by My name
—————humble themselves and
—————pray and
—————seek My face and
—————turn from their wicked ways,
———–then I
—————will hear from heaven,
—————will forgive their sin and
—————will heal their land.”
- Whose ‘people’ is God speaking to?
- How are they described?
- What are God’s four conditions?
- What are God’s three promises?
—–The context of 2 Chronicles 7:14 is the dedication of the just completed Temple which Solomon built in Jerusalem in response to God’s Word to his father, King David. Solomon offers a prayer on behalf of the nation, beseeching the Almighty to be merciful toward them when, during future times of trials, they pray with a contrite heart toward the City and Temple of His Name. In the quiet of the night, God appears to Solomon and gives him the answer to his prayer. In God’s answer is found this verse outlining His conditions for national spiritual healing. He begins ..
Authentic Christianity is when Christ is the ruler and leader of the church, the Holy Spirit is manifested His power, and the presence of God is felt everywhere. Transformation is commonplace, and the deepest wounds are supernaturally healed. The impossible becomes probable, the embittered become filled thanksgiving, and the forgiveness is replaced by the irresistible love of the Savior!
(Byron Paulus in Life Action Ministries: Revive, Summer 2011, 3)
A spiritual awakening is no more than God’s people seeing God in His holiness, turning from their wicked ways, and being transformed into His likeness.
Lewis Drummond
A true revival begins always with those who are believers in New Testament Christianity and, as Edwin Orr wisely reminds us. “more particularly those who had enjoyed the New Testament experience of conversion and regeneration”. Revival is therefore an evangelical experience; it is an “evangelical awakening”.
bryanaloha
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