Passerby writes
"Is the End Days marked with a great worlwide revival or it will be a pervasive apostasy that eludes even the church eyes."
It is clear that the end of days will be marked by a "great falling away." What passerby says directly ties into what Robertw was talking about. It is the rise of the "lawless," one. This spirit of lawlessness is not only already at work within the "Church," it is pervasive. What is Lawlessness? If one goes to a country where the government has broken down, where there is a state of anarchy, then that would be lawlessness. Each man and woman doing what seemed right to them. We are living in the generation of lawlessness and it is not confined to the "younger generation." They have taken it to new levels, but they learned it from their parents. Jesus is their "saviour," but He is not their Lord.
So 10,000 can gather and make noise, but Robertw is exactly right. If 120 can rock the world, without the help of amplifiers, then what should 10,000 be able to do if they moved in the same power that moved the 120? At the risk of repeating myself, I believe the vital missing ingredient form the younger genertaion(teens, 20s and 30s) is Lordship and knowledge of the Word. The vital missing ingredient from actual saints(for there are far more than 120 in the world today) is the "Katanusso," power that Peter spoke of after Pentecost. This word, meaning to "stab in the heart," or to "violently agitate," or to "penetrate," is such a powerful word. Part of the problem is that good solid men of Christ, steeped in the Word of God, men vital to the health of the Christian community, have shied away from this or deny it altogether, either word or by ommision. And on the other side, Pentecostal folk, who believe in this are busy chasing miracles, while ignoring the greates miracle of all, the miracle of the new heart. Evans Roberts new of "Katanusso," power and we saw the Welsh Revival. D.L Moody knew of this same power. This story has been quoted many times on SI but it bears repeating. When men of God hunger after this, perhaps we can save some from this soulish generation..........
D. L. Moody, while speaking at Northfield, related the following experience: "This blessing came upon me suddenly - like a flash of lightning. For months I had been hungering and thirsting for power in service. I had come to that point that I think I would have died if I had not got it. I remember I was walking in the streets of New York. I had more heart in the business I was about than if I had not belonged to this world at all. Right there on the street the power of God seemed to come upon me. I was filled with a sense of God's goodness and felt as though I could take the whole world to my heart. I took the old sermon that I had preached before without any power; it was the same old truth, but there was a new power. Many were impressed and converted.
This happened years after I was converted myself. It was in the fall of 1871. I had been very anxious to have a large Sunday school and a large congregation, but there were few conversions. I remember I used to take pride in having the largest congregation in Chicago on a Sunday night. Two godly women used to come and hear me. One of them came to me one night after I had preached very satisfactorily as I thought. I fancied she was going to congratulate me on my success, but she said, we are praying for you. I wondered if I had made some blunder that they talked that way.
Next Sunday night they were there again, evidently in prayer while I was preaching. One of them said, we are still praying for you. I could not understand it, and said: Praying for me! Why don't you pray for the people? I am all right. Ah, they said, you are not all right. You have not got power; there is something lacking, but God can qualify you. I did not like it at first, but I got to thinking it over, and after a little time I began to feel a desire to have what they were praying for. They continued to pray for me, and the result was that at the end of three months God sent this blessing on me.
I would not for the whole world go back to where I was before 1871. Since then I have never lost the assurance that I am walking in communion with God, and I have a joy in his service that sustains me and makes it easy work. I believe I was an older man then than I am now; and I have been growing ever since. I used to be very tired when preaching three times a week; now I can preach the gospel five times a day and never get tired at all. I have done three times the work I did before, and it gets better and better every year. It is so easy to do a thing when love prompts you. It would be better, it seems to me, to go and break stones than to take to preaching in a professional spirit. A man can accomplish more in one year with this power than he can do in forty years without it. Jonathan Edwards said he was able to do more in Northampton in one week than he did in seven years before the Spirit of God came upon him for service."
This is the secret; the filling of the Holy Spirit. The outstanding men, men who have stirred the world for God, testify to it.
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