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Discussion Forum : Articles and Sermons : What in the World Is God Doing?

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dolfan
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Joined: 2011/8/23
Posts: 1727
Tennessee, but my home's in Alabama

 What in the World Is God Doing?

Last week, my pastor asked me to teach on our mid-week Bible study as a fill-in for him while he was to be out of town. Every now and again, maybe once a year or two, he may do this and I enjoy it.

I started immediately to pray about what to teach. Pastor had just finished a series of lessons on a particular topic. This would be just a one-and-done type of lesson.

Well, I came to my office and prayed and, as the Lord usually does when I'm to speak publicly about Him, He preached to me. :) I listened. I read, researched, followed. And, here, if you care to read it and don't mind the length of it and don't think me prideful, I wanted to share it. Not because it is "good" but because I myself am shaken by it. I'm "tore up", as they say. I don't know if anyone else in that room of 35 or so last night has any real reaction to it; I know I got a lot of glares and stares when it was over. :) But, this is a slightly edited version of what I said last night (Wed May 7). If you see anything that I said that was wrong, I apologize up front and ask your forgiveness. I assure you that, in spite of the strength of the tone and its seriousness, I in no way am frustrated with our church but love our people deeply. But, we've got a problem. We need a revival and an awakening.



Quote:


What In The World Is God Doing? – A Report of Pentecostal Revival In The World, A Plea for Pentecostal Revival In This Place
What in the world is God doing? God is making dead people live. I don’t mean necessarily in the way he made Lazarus live. I don’t mean the way he made Eutychus, the poor fellow who fell to his death at Paul’s long preaching live. By the way, his name means ‘good fortune’.

God is making dead people live. He’s bringing good grace through His good word to dead people who haven’t wanted anything to do with him before now. The prophet Habbakuk’s words are coming true in our time. “O LORD, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O LORD, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.”

There is wrath ongoing in the world. The Bible says that the wrath of God already rests on the children of disobedience. But, Habakkuk prayed that God would remember mercy in His wrath, and God is answering that prayer even now.

In Isaiah 55:1, God invites “everyone who thirsts” to “come to the waters”. What waters? Ultimately, the living waters that flow from Jesus. Jesus said that whoever believes in Him will have rivers of living water flowing out of him. God is the great fountain head of the life that flows through His people. And, He offers Himself to stiff-necked people. Stubborn people……. People who say they don’t believe, those who say they want no part of Him are changing their minds.

It is happening around the world in hard, confined places. God said through Isaiah in the same chapter, “he who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.” So, the wider world is spending money for that which is not bread and working for that which is unsatisfying. The Lord poses this question to us all in Isaiah 55 -- Why do that? He is holding us to account for an answer.

Now, He knows why. God doesn’t learn. He knows why we reject Him. Because our hearts are only evil continually, because we love darkness rather than light. That’s our natural state. But, in the midst of this, God is faithful to His own word and He is raising up from the dead these masses of people with the good fortune to hear the gospel of Jesus and be made alive though they were dead in their own slumber and in their own boredom with God.

He is saying, “I will make with YOU an everlasting covenant. Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the Lord that He may have compassion on him, and to God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

There are nations and people we do not know, that are running to Him. We do not see as we should. Part of the reason for this is simply that our thoughts are not His and our ways are not His. Even if we don’t realize it, God’s word is coming like rain from heaven to the earth, giving life. His word is leaving Him and going into this world and will accomplish what God wants for God’s glory. Mountains and hills are breaking forth into singing. Good trees bearing good fruit are coming up out of thorns and brier patches around the world. They are being made an everlasting name, an everlasting sign for the Lord that will not be cut off.

You need to know about it. Not just because it is happening far from you. And, it is. But, because you and I are in a culture that thinks it has had its fill of God, or – closer to home – thinks we’re right with God when we’re not.

What in the world is God doing? I want to give you some report of His work, and then a plea. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to get lost in the trees of these facts. There’s a bigger movement happening, a fulfilling of God’s promises for the last day and we – frankly -- are not involved. But, we can be. So, stay with me.

In 1907, Pentecostal missionaries became active in China. By 1949 when the communist takeover of China occurred and Westerners were forced to leave, there were only approximately 5 million Christians in mainland China. In isolation from the rest of Christianity for 40-50 years, Christians in China huddled in secret house meetings. By the year 2000, the number of Christians in China were estimated widely between 20 and 70 million. That’s up to ten-fold growth in half a century where it was illegal to hold any kind of unregistered church gathering and where evangelism was strictly forbidden. Present estimates are as high as more than 100 million Christians in China. Hear me --- there are more Christians in China than in the United States. China may now have the largest number of Spirit-filled, Pentecostal Christians in the world, especially in unregistered independent house churches. The Holy Spirit never left China. He arranged a remnant to thrive, but at a heavy cost.

Pastors and Christians, especially the Pentecostal house churches, are being thrown in jail to this day.

In fact, in the nations of China, Iran and Syria, where there are people who are desperate to know God in truth, the great moves of God are happening in houses, secret gatherings and in settings outside what Americans know as “churches”. But, let’s focus on China for another moment.

For example, a house church leader in Shanghai said in 2012 in Charisma magazine, “When I lived in America, if you could lead somebody to the Lord once a year that was good. Here I can lead somebody to the Lord once a week. People are so hungry for God.” He reports that government spies have attended his meetings and have secretly eavesdropped on him, and that as long as house church meetings stay below 100 people, the government will usually leave them alone. Other believers in China report that there are so many house churches now that the government is finding it impossible to keep up.

And, they are growing deeper. One house church pastor says, “They say, ‘Will you talk about the Holy Spirit?’ and I talk about the Spirit for three days.”

In urban areas, believers gather in larger places than houses. Church buildings are more common in the urban areas, but not common overall. So, believers will rent hotel rooms and meet in restaurants.

People are being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Nanlai Cao, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, in the book “Global Pentecostalism in the 21st Century, estimates that between 60 and 80 percent of Christians in China are Pentecostal.

Dr. Karrie Koesel is a secular researcher of the influence of Pentecostalism in China and in Russia. In a 2011 edition of the USC News, speaking of a research project done with USC’s US-China Institute, Dr. Koesel observed “You literally would have no idea that you could be surrounded by dozens of house churches unless perhaps you overheard a worship service.”

At the same time, one pastor – an American by the name of Dennis Balcombe who moved to Hong Kong in 1969 and has lived in Hong Kong and China since and has lived as a missionary, church planter and organizer of churches in homes and in what we would call church buildings notes what he thinks is a new trend. “Now,” he says on his website in March, 2014, “the trend is to actually build church buildings. But, unlike the West, in China these buildings are extremely practical as they are used every day all the time. Also a church in a heathen nation really stands out and will attract many people weekly. The church in China that meets in a church building reaches many times the amount of people weekly than a house church will reach in many months. There is a lot to learn about the house church principle and how to balance this with meeting in traditional churches.”

Here are hard numbers that when you think of China, think this: 30,000 people a day are coming to faith in Jesus in China. One other pastor in China says this: “It’s the greatest revival in church history.”

Let me share with you what else Dennis Balcombe said in March, 2014 “We have prayed for literally tens of thousands of people, many being leaders, who have been filled with the Holy Spirit. Of course that brings the fire of God (fervency in ministry…), gifts of the Holy Spirit, a burden for the lost, … tongues…., and a heavenly vision. Many believe this has been one reason for the present revival in parts of China. … Even to this day the delivery of Bibles…to distribute to house churches… is one reason we have so many open doors for ministry….But, it is important to encourage the Christians in western countries that they can do what we do too. It is not just giving money for Bibles, but to actually minister to people. If they are filled with the Holy Spirit, they can teach and impart to others. It begins in their home. …. Many charismatics are mistaken in putting their focus on big and famous ministries from the West. … Actually the most effective way of ministry may not be speaking to huge crowds of thousands, but constantly really minister to God’s servants and handmaidens in their own local churches. We can all do this, but we must first be baptized in the Spirit.”

Good trees bearing good fruit are coming up out of thorns and brier patches in China. They are being made an everlasting name, an everlasting sign for the Lord that will not be cut off.

What is God doing in Iran? The native language in Iran is Farsi (Persian) not Arabic. 75 % of Iranians speak Farsi. Iranians are not Arabs. The other 25% speak a variety of languages, mostly that of Azerbaijian and Kurdish. There is a small segment of the population that speak Assyrian. One of the few Pentecostal churches registered in Iran is an Assyrian speaking church. The largest Farsi speaking Pentecostal church in Iran was an Assemblies of God church that was shut down by the government in 2013.

According to the Mohabat news agency, there are 1 million Christians in Iran out of a population of 77 million. Other sources put the number at closer to 500,000 Christians. Numbers are hard things to verify in Iran. Iran is a dark, dark place in terms of persecution. In 2010 and 2011, after the Iranian president publicly congratulated Christians around the world on Christmas, a roundup of Christians in Iran went full throttle. Churches, including Pentecostal churches, were shut down. Some of these were Farsi speaking Pentecostal churches.

The Iranian believers are being tormented. Their homes are ransacked and vandalized, computers destroyed, possessions seized and Christian art desecrated. The government has vowed more arrests. Christian family members are threatened with rape.
Individuals are coerced to sign admissions that they have been deceived and return to Islam. But despite the threats, most Christians find cause for rejoicing in the midst of their suffering. One imprisoned female Christian, though very sick, said she had the opportunity to lead three people to the Lord, including a criminal on death row, making her trial worthwhile.

No churches have been allowed to be built in Iran for decades. But house churches to proliferate, with hundreds in some cities. And despite the looming threat, Shi'ite Muslims are turning to Christ in unprecedented numbers. One government official called this "a disaster."

It isn’t really known or appreciated much in America, but Iran is one of the most Westernized of the Eastern nations. The people, mostly, are not Islamic fundamentalists, in spite of the “Islamic revolution” that started in 1979. 2014 Iran has a lot of the same relationship with Islam as 2014 Alabama has with Christianity – it is mostly cultural and not truly followed.

But, for those who come to Christ, the truth of their profession is put to the test. Yet, Iranian Christians believe the Bible is true when it says that the Lord will subject all things to Himself and to submit them to the Father, and so they find their hope in the end of all things. So, they push themselves to share their faith with others.

The Islamic Revolution in Iran is meeting the Iranian Revival. Good trees bearing good fruit are coming up out of thorns and brier patches in IRAN. They are being made an everlasting name, an everlasting sign for the Lord that will not be cut off.

The Pew Forum is no Christian group. It has nothing to do with church pews. Yet, the director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said, “Pentecostal beliefs and practices are literally reshaping the face of Christianity throughout the developing world.” They performed a survey in 2006. For what it is worth, 23% of American Christians identify as Pentecostal, Charismatic or “Renewalists” (indicating a belief in modern presence of the Holy Spirit and the NT gifts of the Spirit). Brazil: 49% Guatemala: 60%. Kenya: 56% S. Africa: 34%. Philippines: 44%.

In the last 100 years, Christianity has grown the most in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia-Pacific and in the Americas (in S. America, mainly Brazil). This also is from a Pew Forum survey: Half the Christians on the planet live in the nations where Pentecostalism is strongest. US, Brazil, China, Phillippines and 6 other countries. In Latin America, it is estimated by Pew that Pentecostals grew by 40 million in the time between 1990 and 2005 – only 15 years. Mexico has a small percentage of Pentecostals among its Christians, but recent persecution suggests that it is poised to explode. In 2013, a group of Pentecostals building a new church was attacked with sledgehammers and pick-axes; the “city president” ordered “the demolishing of their temple, the lynching, incarceration and torture of the” Pentecostal Christians. If he wants to stop Pentecostal revival, he should pay them and entertain them.

Yet, in 2012, Public Radio International reported on one Mexican town where the Pentecostal presence is converting Catholics.

Good trees bearing good fruit are coming up out of thorns and brier patches even in MEXICO. They are being made an everlasting name, an everlasting sign for the Lord that will not be cut off.

We could look at Brazil, Syria – last year, in a Turkish camp where Syrian refugees had fled, Voice of the Martyrs --- a ministry to the persecuted based in Oklahoma, and NOT a Pentecostal group – reported as fact the working of miraculous healings and people being saved by Jesus Christ in the camps. You should get the point by now – God, the Holy Spirit, is glorifying the God the Father and bringing the Word of God the Son to the salvation of many people powerfully in the world. Revival is happening in the power of Pentecost.

Pentecostal Christianity is the only part of the Christian tradition that is growing America, according to the US Religious Census in 2010.

You might say, “Okay – I get it. But, what does that have to do with me?” Let me frame it another way.

What is God doing ---- here? We’ve looked at surveys and stats. We’ve heard personal reports. We know what the Bible says: His word is leaving Him and going into this world and will accomplish what God wants. Good trees bearing good fruit are coming up out of thorns and brier patches around the world. They are being made an everlasting name, an everlasting sign for the Lord that will not be cut off.

But, we live in one of the most spiritually dark places in America. Alabama – north Alabama – for all of our churches, is dark. Bear with me while I point something out.

In 2012, USA Today reported that 46% of Americans look at God, Jesus, religion, heaven and say “so what?”. That many in the survey report spending ZERO time searching for eternal wisdom or meaning of any kind. 46% -- the same percentage, different survey -- told LifeWay Research in 2011 that they never wonder whether they will go to heaven; 28% in that survey said, “it’s not a priority in my life to find my deeper purpose”. One high school teacher in Chicago, when interviewed in connection with the USAToday story, said, “We might as well be cars.” (USA Today 1-3-2012)

And, the teacher is onto something. As our attachment to data, our attachment to entertainment and distraction, and our affluence has increased, as our desire to please ourselves has grown, we are detaching from any thought of God. We’re hardware. In a very real way, we might as well be cars because – except for a move of the Holy Ghost – we are coming to regard one another as nothing more than objects and God as nothing more than a fuzzy idea that we can take or leave. Except for a move of the Holy Ghost.

We are – like a bunch of cars – racing toward eternity’s cliff.
Our churches have taken on the priorities and personalities of the world’s ways to meet a set of artificial expectations on the way to the wrong goal.

The goal of Pentecost is the glory of God. The goal of today’s church in Alabama is the glory of “satellite campuses” hand-picked for affluent zip codes by pastors with hip clothes and hair product and cool light shows. The goal of today’s church in Alabama is political power, social standing and country club facilities. If Jesus really shows up in Alabama, somebody is going to be in trouble.

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.” 1 Cor. 1:19 (NASB). He is bringing to nothing the understanding of everyone who thinks they know something about what God wants when they don’t even care who God is. Nothing artificial will stand.

Around the world the Holy Spirit is moving in small homes, small churches and a handful of larger church bodies and meeting places. He is bringing to nothing everywhere whatever man has thought of as something. He is bringing people to repentance. He is taking people who have been nothing more than dead parts, hardware, and He is bringing them to life through a holy brokenness. He is putting sinew and flesh on what was dead and He is quickening it, making it alive to the glory of God in the name of Jesus.

God says in Isaiah 29:14 “Once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” (NIV) The wonders of the Holy Spirit do not need the intelligence, the data, the influence, the inventions, the church growth plans, nor any of the wisdom of men. He is fully capable of making the dead live again. The closest we can come to it is a hologram of Michael Jackson.

But, we are going to have to break from our affections. All of that which we rely upon to satisfy our outer selves – to satisfy the lusts of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh and the pride of our own lives – must be surrendered and left behind. He is calling us to a new life of brokenness and obedience.

Can I share with you where He has done this in America recently? I’d love to. But, I can’t. I tried. I’ve read, researched and looked.
That isn’t to say that the Holy Spirit is not moving. He is. God is active. God’s empowerment of His people is not on hiatus. There are outcroppings of churches being awakened and moves of God here and there (Redemption Point COG in Chattanooga is a recent example), but we honestly cannot say that there is any sustained revival in any part of our nation or even our own state or county.
You have to go back more than 120 years to see such a thing in this country. There is zero history of such a move happening within Alabama. Zero history of such a move happening in our own place.

This is not a criticism or browbeating. This is a confession. We are in the same boat, church. Our church and all of the other churches in this little spot on the map are in the same situation. We are desperate and do not know it. We are blind, wretched, poor, miserable and naked and we do not know it. We are in a place where the Lord Jesus has something against us as he did against the church at Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3, and we do not know it or we will not admit it.

Some of us are blind because of pet theology. Eternal security or “once saved, always saved” has become a license to sin. John Calvin was a true man of God, but he is quoted with more authority than Jesus Christ. A close relative in the charismatic churches is the so-called “grace” teaching that has been popularized in books and TV by the likes of Joseph Prince that says all you have to do is believe in Jesus and your spirit is made holy while your flesh can live in the liberty of whatever you want to do. Blinding us.

Pentecostals have pet theologies that blind us, too; our holiness leanings were codified into legalistic rules that blinded us with pride, and nowadays our liberty in the Lord is wallpapered over with a worship of worship services and a life of week-to-week emotional fixes. If we judged ourselves rightly, we’d conclude that the sweetness of the Holy Spirit has turned to saccharin in Alabama’s Pentecostal churches. That Sweet and Low has bled over into the evangelical church, too; when a church in Decatur, Alabama has a quarter-million in lights and sound equipment, the church meeting itself has been made into an object of worship. We are blinded by pet theologies, and we don’t know it or we won’t admit it. The church of Jesus in this city is stumbling around in the dark and it is used to it.

Some of us are wretched in the church. We live with public profession of faith in Christ but at home, at work and away from the gathered body of believers we live privately and comfortably in all kinds of sin. Too many of us in this community who say “Jesus is mine,” have a lot of other “mines” that Jesus has no part in them. My hobby. My viewing habits. My choice of what to put into my body. My decisions about who I share my body with. My secret feelings of superiority or satisfaction that I have a certain kind of home, automobile or my kids go to a certain school, my feelings that I am somehow ahead of the curve in life because of it. Let me share something with us all – the only curve in this world is a downhill slope headed for hell. If you want to be ahead of that curve, it is to your own destruction. These “mines” are the real testimony of the church in Decatur, Morgan County, Alabama, America. We are wretched, church. And, we don’t want to be told that we’re wretched.

Some of us are poor in the church and don’t know it. We live far below the poverty line, spiritually. We are doing without when He stands ready to pour Himself out on people who are as serious about Him as He is about us. We have a high opinion about ourselves and our lives and what we have managed to carve out for ourselves, but the Lord’s assessment of us is “you are poor.” We define our “needs” in terms of what we want for our own happiness, and we seek “practical sermons” to give us ways to get happier. Jesus looks at us and says, “What you need is my Spirit, my power and to obey my gospel and preach/teach what I’ve told my people to do. If you do this, you can tread on deadly serpents, you can have authority over devils, you can know me in truth and be free.” A lot of what we experience in terms of loneliness, discouragement, worry and fear actually ought to awaken us to our brokenness and our spiritual poverty. A lot of what we experience as success ought to awaken us to the fact that, when we look at our lives in the Holy Spirit of God, we have nothing. Yet, people who profess Christ will line up to hear ear-tickling sermons that sound more like psychotherapy, and go home with no more of the Spirit of God in them than the day before they made a profession of faith. If the early church turned the world upside down, the Christian church in our community today is flipping itself over to recover it. We’re spiritually poor and we don’t know it.

Some of us are miserable and naked. And we don’t know it. Listen. In 1 Corinthians 15:19, Paul described misery as having hope in Christ in this life only. Understand him. The popular evangelical profession of faith in Jesus is empty. There’s no power. There’s no deliverance. There’s no conviction. There’s only compromise, capitulation, self-justification and self-satisfaction. If the Christians in this area really were gotten hold of by God, a revival would sweep down on us the likes of which we never imagined. But, we are burdened with so much of the world, striving so hard to obtain its rewards, that I honestly fear that we have no hope of eternal life even though we are faithful church attenders, faithful tithers and givers and wouldn’t use any drugs or alcohol and all that. We have put all of our chips in the benefits of this life. We spend no time travailing in prayer closets. We spend no time infusing the living Word of God into our spirits to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We spend no time telling the lost about their own sad state and the glorious hope of salvation in Christ. We have no concern about those things or we mentally block any imagination of the need to do them.

We are happy enough to be hearers and not doers, until the hearing gets too close to home then we’re unhappy hearers and we clamor for change that suits our own frame of mind. There is no hope for any life beyond this one for such a man or woman. Their only hope in Christ is by association, as opium for the conscience. That, in the New Testament, is the very definition of misery. And, the problem with this kind of misery is that you don’t know it until the Spirit of God wakes you up to it or you die and face an eternally rude awakening that the fakery and the flattery was self-inflicted.

When we look at this sorry state of the church and we’re not broken by it, it is no wonder that there is no revival here in Decatur, Morgan County, Alabama or in America. It isn’t the sin of those who reject God that is bringing His judgment. It is the unrepentant church of the self-absorbed that keeps the Lord at bay, and judgment must begin at the house of God.

We can be judged as faithful. We can. It may not be too late. God is still merciful. We can plea for Pentecostal revival here and see it.

I want to share with you what Greg Laurie said. If you know who he is, okay. If not, it doesn’t matter. I just want you to hear this and give him correct attribution. "Revival is something that God does for us. We don't do it for God," Laurie said. "You can't create revival, you cannot organize revival, but you can agonize for revival in prayer." Someone defined revival as "a community saturated with God," he added. "Revival is nothing more or less than a new beginning of obedience to God.” (Christian Post, August 12, 2013).

Oh, listen to me if you are mad or upset or disturbed or moved or don’t care – please listen. In the wake of WWII, the UK was devastated. --- I know that seems like ancient history, but if you’re 30, 1980 seems like ancient history. To me it seems like yesterday, and to God it was just now, so hear me out. Don’t think “your world” and “your generation” is so different from time past that God is somehow outpaced. -- It was a low ebb for everyone. You would expect that people in their 80’s then would have just laid down and died. That’s what the poor, blind, miserable, naked wretches do. But, on the Hebrides, the islands off the coast of Scotland, two sisters in their 80s prayed. Let me clarify – two really, really old ladies were full of the Holy Ghost and got broken before God in their prayer closets for a long, long time. They didn’t just pray. They went back to war.

This verse got hold of them: “I will pour water on him that is thirsty and floods on the dry ground.” That’s Isaiah 44:3. Verse 4 says “I will pour out my Spirit on your sons and daughters.” They prayed all night the night the Lord gave them this verse. They got their pastor, and said [paraphrasing], “you need to do something about this. We suggest you and some other church leaders spend two nights a week with us in prayer. You all and go meet in a barn or wherever, and we’ll two pray right here, but we pray together and call out to God.” Well, they did it. 7 church leaders, the pastor in a barn, two 80 something year old sisters in a run down cottage on the islands off the coast of Scotland.

I’m going to read you an account of what happened next. This is from a transcript of a sermon by Duncan Campbell. Never mind who he is right now. In this transcript, he’s recalling what he was told and later, what he saw. Listen.

“Well that continued for some weeks--indeed, I believe almost a month and a half. Until one night; now this is what I am anxious for you to get a hold of--one night they were kneeling there in the barn, pleading this promise, "I will pour water on him that is thirsty, floods upon the dry ground" when one young man, a deacon in the church, got up and read Psalm 24. "Who shall ascend the hill of God? Who shall stand in His holy place? He that has clean hands and a pure heart who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity or sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing (not a blessing, but the blessing) of the Lord." And then that young man closed his Bible. And looking down at the minister and the other office bearers, he said this …. "It seems to me to be so much humbug to be praying as we are praying, to be waiting as we are waiting, if we ourselves are not rightly related to God." And then he lifted his two hands-and I'm telling you just as the minister told me it happened-he lifted his two hands and prayed, "God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure? " But he got no further. That young man fell to his knees and then fell into a trance. Now don't ask me to explain this because I can't. He fell into a trance and is now lying on the floor of the barn. And in the words of the minister, at that moment, he and his other office bearers were gripped by the conviction that a God-sent revival must ever be related to holiness, must ever be related to Godliness. Are my hands clean? Is my heart pure? The man that God will trust with revival-that was the conviction.” End quote.

Duncan Campbell was a Presbyterian minister in Scotland. He was contacted and asked to come help. He told them he couldn’t but within 10 days he was on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides. Told them he could stay for 10 days. Here’s what happened that night. Listen closely. If you want to hear him tell it, I’ll give you a link later if you ask me.

He arrived in Barvas on the isle of Lewis at 8:45 at night. They took him straight to the church. 300 people there, there was some movement of the Spirit but not anything monumental. Dismissal prayer was given. Campbell was on his way out the front door when the little deacon who’d prayed Psalm 24 in the barn stood out in the aisle and looking up to the heavens he said, "God, You can't fail us. God, You can't fail us. You promised to pour water on the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground-God, You can't fail us!"
He falls to his knees and what Campbell called a trance, again. Well, I guess Presbyterian Scots have trances, Pentecostals get slain in the Spirit. Just then, at 11 PM, the door of the church opens and the local blacksmith comes back into the church and says, "Mr. Campbell, something wonderful has happened. Oh, we were praying that God would pour water on the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground and listen, He's done it! He's done it!"

They went to the door and 600 people are standing outside, 100 of them from a dance that spontaneously ended and people said, “We have to go to Barvas” and started walking to the church. People suddenly got up from bed and started heading down the streets to the church. Campbell said, “I believe that that very night God swept in Pentecostal power-the power of the Holy Ghost. And what happened in the early days of the apostles was happening now in the parish of Barvas.” Wait, there’s more. 800 people now in the church until 4 AM. 5 of the ones who were saved later became ministers in the church of Scotland. Service let out at 4 AM, Campbell was stopped outside and told [paraphrasing], “You’ve got to come to the police station. 400 people are outside and don’t know what to do.”

Next to the police station was the cottage in which the two old women lived. On the way, about a mile and a half walk, Campbell heard someone praying by the roadside, 4 men crying out to God for salvation. One of them later became pastor of this church in Barvas.

Let me quote Campbell again. “Now when I got to the police station, I saw something that will live with me as long as I live. I didn't preach--there was no need of preaching. We didn't even sing. The people are crying to God for mercy. Oh, the confessions that were made! There was one old man crying out, "Oh, God, hell is too good for me! Hell is too good for me!" This is Holy Ghost conviction! Now mind you, that was on the very first night of a mighty demonstration that shook the island. Oh, let me say again, that wasn't the beginning of revival--revival began in a prayer barter meeting. Revival began in an awareness of God. Revival began when the Holy Ghost began to grip men and that was how it began.” It lasted 5 more months and bore much long term fruit.

I plead with you with all that is in me. Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near. Not in some go- home-and-do-this-in-your-own-way kind of thing. I mean in a let’s some of us go the barn, let’s some of us kneel at the table, let’s some of us meet at the church, let’s some of us turn off all the distractions at home and get on our faces before God and PRAY for Him to revive us.

“O LORD, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O LORD, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” “We have nothing to offer you, Lord, but we are here to drink from your water, we are here to eat the bread of heaven, and we cry to you, Lord to be true to your Word, to your promise. We turn from our wicked ways and our unrighteous thoughts and we cry out to you to pardon us in your compassion and steadfast love. Cause us to run to you, Lord. Cause others who do not know you to run to you just as we do. Don’t withhold, Lord, but cause the mountains to clap, cause the hills to sing, cause this brier patch of my heart, this brier patch of my home, this brier patch of my church, this brier patch of my neighborhood, this brier patch of my family, this brier patch of my city, my county, even my state, Lord, to yield good trees that bear good fruit that glorifies you. Make us an everlasting name and do not cut us off, O Lord.”

This is what God is doing in the world. This is what God will do here if we, in concert, get down to business with Him and be revived, awakened. I’m asking as many as will, I know you think you have something else to do Friday night. But, at 7 this Friday, we’re going to pray in our meeting of what we call Deeper Life and I’m asking you to pray for the Lord to visit this place, starting with your own life. Who can ascend to his holy hill? Who has clean hands and a pure heart. We need a cleansing. We say we are Pentecostal, let’s see if God will withhold the power of Pentecost when we come to seek him in truth and in desperation. Are we willing to even start that? Are we willing to stay with it if we don’t see God move in our own schedules?? God, help us.

Pray. Dismiss.


_________________
Tim

 2014/5/8 10:15Profile









 Re: What in the World Is God Doing?

Dear Brother,
If you spoke this and got nothing but "stares and glares", I tremble for your congregation and Alabama and America.

From now on, it seems like only tornadoes and earthquakes will wake people up or bury them. It truly grieves me.

Sister L

 2014/5/8 19:40
dolfan
Member



Joined: 2011/8/23
Posts: 1727
Tennessee, but my home's in Alabama

 Re:

I am fearful, too. There remains a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries of God. Heb. 10:27. I am desperately afraid for people I love.


_________________
Tim

 2014/5/8 23:22Profile
Lysa
Member



Joined: 2008/10/25
Posts: 3699
East TN for now!

 Re: What in the World Is God Doing?


Brother,

I printed this out and just now completed reading this. Wow!! Be not discouraged about all the glares and stares, the Bible states all who go through the fire and 1/3 come out as gold! Someone heard, you have to trust the Lord on that!

Someone posted a video on the Asbury Revival and in it he states that 6 people made a covenant (?) to pray and read the Bible for 30 minutes a day. And then those 6 got 6 MORE! By the time it hit (30 days later?), 36 people were seeking God!! How simple was that!??

Thank you for sharing this, I needed to read this.

God bless,
Lisa


_________________
Lisa

 2014/5/19 9:36Profile
dolfan
Member



Joined: 2011/8/23
Posts: 1727
Tennessee, but my home's in Alabama

 Re:

Virtually no one not already in our Friday night meeting took us up on the invitation that week.

We had a scheduled "revival" this past weekend. It was, in many ways, good. But, if it is a beginning of revival, I don't recognize it. We will see. And I don't mean with arms folded. I mean with knees bent. God cannot fail. He cannot fail.

If I described this past weekend, I would say it wasn't even crumbs from the Master's table. I would say He has a feast of Himself prepared for a prepared people. My prayer is that God revives us, awakens us still. And that we shake off our sleep and run to Him. Not our local church merely, but the whole town, the whole area.


_________________
Tim

 2014/5/19 10:07Profile





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