Revival

Many Christians have strong hope for revival. Despite the decline of faith in Jesus throughout the Western world, they believe that God will send a revival that will turn the situation around and restore the church to the place of strength that it once held.

The problem with this hope is that revival is not a New Testament concept. The word “revival” is not used in the Testament

The closest to a reference to revival is in Acts 3:19, but it refers to “refreshing” not revival. It was addressed to people who were not believers in Jesus, so Peter was not challenging a dull church. He was doing evangelism in a hostile world, which is very different.

The other problem with the revival hope is that it puts the blame for the decline of the church on God. If the Holy Spirit moves in power in some seasons then remains hidden for other seasons, then a period of decline is most likely the consequence of the Holy Spirit is having withdrawn for a season. If that is the case, the solution is to persuade God to send the Holy Spirit back again to bring revival. There is nothing that God’s people can do until the Holy Spirit returns again.

Unfortunately, the underlying premise of this hope is flawed. The Holy Spirit does come and go. He is not in a good mood at some times and in a bad mood at others. He is not unavailable to the church for long seasons. The biblical message is that Jesus has poured the Holy Spirit into the world. He is always working and he never goes away. He is always available to people who seek him honestly and sincerely.

The biblical message to a church in decline is to change your thinking (repent). Change your ways. Do things differently. The Bible promises that if we will humble ourselves and fully commit to doing his will, he will move in power amongst us.

The decline of the church is never God’s fault. It is never because the Holy Spirit has stopped moving for a season. It is always because the church has failed to listen to the Holy Spirit and obey his voice. The reason he cannot move in the way that he wants to is that the church is unwilling to obey him.

In this season, I see no sign that the church wants to change what it is doing and do what the Holy Spirit is desperately begging it to do. The church seems to want to carry on doing things the same way as it has always done, even though it is not working.

The church seems intent on doing what it is already doing. That means that revival is unlikely to come soon. Relying on revival teaching is a false hope.

Real Hope

This current season is disturbing and confusing for many Christians.

In the western world, the church has been going backwards for the past fifty years. Some brilliant theology has been written, but the world is not listening. Some wonderful people have come out of seminary to serve the church, but they have been trained to preach to Christians; they have not been trained to do what Jesus disciples did. A few large churches have been established, but their growth does not compensate for the losses from thousands of smaller churches.

The consequence of this decline is that governments have been stopped being pro-Christian, and worse, the spiritual powers of evil have gained greater authority to work evil on earth. So the situation in the world has got worse, too.

Some Christians don’t care about this decline, because they see it as a sign that the end is near when Jesus will return to rescue them, but that is a false hope that is an insult to the Holy Spirit. Christians have been saying that the return of Jesus was imminent for the past century, but it now seems to be further away.

Although the church has been declining in the West for the last fifty years, most Christians have not been too worried, because they have always believed that a revival was coming, and that will turn the situation around. Even those who believe that the end is near are expecting a great end-time harvest.

The internet prophets continue to ramble on about a coming revival, and people who are desperate for hope draw hope from them, but those who are wise know that these prophets have been wrong so many times that they cannot be trusted.

Christians looking for revival will be disappointed because the next move of God will not come in the form that they are expecting. The revivals of the past were church-based movements where lukewarm or lapsed Christians were revived and drawn back into the existing church structures.

The reality is that the modern church does not want revival because it is unwilling to make the changes that God needs it to make so that he can accomplish his purposes on earth. Pastors have chosen to keep on doing what they know how to do, even though it does not work in the modern world, and the people are mostly happy to go along. The modern church is persisting with big-man leadership and big Sunday meetings, but these practices are serious obstacles to the next move of God.

God is not interested in reviving the church during this season. He wants to do something far greater. He wants to establish his kingdom on earth, and he needs people who are committed to working with his Holy Spirit to do it. Unfortunately, the modern church does not have a vision for the Kingdom of God that is real.

The modern church does not have the spiritual strength to engage a full-frontal attack on the kingdoms of the world to establish the Kingdom of God. The spiritual powers of evil are too deeply entrenched in our political and cultural systems to be easily defeated. To turn the situation around, the church will need to engage in guerrilla tactics and establish tiny strongholds on the edges of society and slowly expand out from there to gain more ground.

God wants to do something quite different from what the church has done in the past. His next move will be neighbourhood-based on the edge of society and away from the centres of power and privilege. To be prepared for the next season, followers of Jesus must seek out different ways of operating on the edge of culture.

The next move of God will not be like Billy Graham preaching to large crowds of lapsed Christians (who would struggle to get on board with what God is doing now), nor like televangelists preaching prosperity and comfort. They will be more like the seventy disciples that Jesus sent out in pairs, going to a village or neighbourhood of a town and living there in unity with some brothers and sisters in the Lord, loving one another, healing the sick and announcing the Kingdom of God.

I presume that the church will continue to implode as continues with the old way of working. Big-name pastors will be persecuted if they continue to push salvation by law as the solution to big social issues. At the same time, society will continue to disintegrate as the spiritual powers of evil are given more and more control on earth. But the idea that this is the beginning of the end is a lie that we should reject.

The best is still to come. God is calling and preparing a body that can work with the Holy Spirit to bring in the Kingdom of God on earth. When human political power collapses under the weight of its own evil, breaking the power of the spiritual powers of evil (and the Jews come to faith in Jesus), the Holy Spirit will move in power amongst those who have prepared. He will release a powerful move that will bring in the greatest harvest that the earth has ever experienced. Billions of people will choose to follow Jesus and join his kingdom, as they follow the leading of his Holy Spirit.

This is a discouraging season for those who trust in the church. Those who are trusting in the Holy Spirit and are open to his leading and looking for him to move in a new and better way should be excited by the opportunity that is open to them.

See Ekklesia and Kingdom.

Jeremiah and Revival

Over the last forty years, I have heard numerous and frequent prophesies that revival in New Zealand was just round the corner. My experience is not unique. Christians all over the western world are hungry for revival and the prophetic websites are full of prophecies that revival is coming and close. But despite all this hype, our hopes have been disappointed.

As I have pondered this problem, I have come to believe that we will not get the revival we are hoping for, because the leaders of the church are unwilling to follow the instructions that Jesus gave about his church should function. There is no sign of that changing, so I now doubt that revival will come in my lifetime.

I have been reading Jeremiah 5-8. It is relevant to our situation, because he was speaking to disappointed people. When troubles came, they had hoped God would rescue them from disaster and defeat, but instead things got worse.

Jeremiah would say something like this to those who are disappointed by lack of revival.

You hoped for things to go well,
but nothing good happens.
You are looking for light,
but you will find only darkness;
hard, cold, and lonely.
You are looking for revival,
but you will experience hostility,
because you have disobeyed God.
You hoped for a time of restoration,
but there was only fear and terror.

Jeremiah explained that God could not rescue the children of Israel from their troubles despite their desperate prayers. Their leaders had ignored the instructions that God had given to them.

The same is true of the modern church. The leaders of the church have ignored the instructions that Jesus gave about his church should function. The main reason our hopes of revival have been disappointed is not God is unwilling or slow to act. The reason for our disappointment is that we have not followed his instructions. It is as simple as that. You cannot ignore God’s wisdom and expect the blessing that it would bring.

A horrifying thing has happened: The prophets prophesy lies, the pastors manage according to their own ideas, and the people love it this way. But what will you do in the end (Jer 5:20-31)?

The leaders know the way of the LORD, the requirements of their God.” But with one accord they have broken off the yoke and torn off the bonds (Jer 5:5).

From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain;
prophets and pastors alike, all practice deceit.
They have treated the brokenness of God’s people as though it were not serious.
They say all will be well, things will be well, when they are not well (Jer 6:14).

They have not heeded God’s words. They rejected his instructions (Jer 6:19).

They don’t listen to him, but they walk in their own wisdom and their own inclinations (Jer 7:24).

Jeremiah worried,

To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed, so they cannot hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it (Jer 6:10).

Jesus gave his disciples clear instructions about how he wanted his church to operate, and he showed them how to do it. The letters to the churches clarified some issues that were not covered clearly in the gospels. The early church applied Jesus’ instructions and had amazing success in reaching the world. However, once the church was successful, it gave up many of things that Jesus had instructed it to do, and replaced them with some human ideas about how it should operate.

Although, the human way of doing things has rarely given the church the success that it had when it complied with Jesus’ instructions, it has continued to ignore them and continued to follow human ideas about how it should function. Some of these human ways of operating have become so much part of the way the normal church operates that they now seem to be non-negotiable (idols). Most Christians would find it hard to imagine the church without them, but unless we give them up and choose to apply Jesus’ instructions for the church, we will not see the revival that we are longing for.

We make excuses for our lack of success, such as secularist thinking, materialistic culture or social media, but the reality is that sharing the gospel was much harder for the early church than it is for us. The reason for our failure is not due to the hard conditions that we face, but because we don’t apply Jesus’ instructions.

Several human constructs, which are contrary to Jesus’ instructions for the church, make it impossible for God to send revival to the western church. No prophets are challenging them, but these idols will need to be removed before we can experience the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

Revival Prophecies (7) Honest Voice

An honest prophetic voice would be warning that New Zealand is going into a season of relative darkness (not intense persecution or tribulation) when the resistance to the gospel will be stronger gospel, and hostility to Christian values will intensify. Pastors who speak out on social issues from a Christian perspective could be strongly criticised in an attempt to silence their voice.

An honest prophetic voice would be explaining that the spiritual powers of evil have seized territory throughout the nation and without facing much opposition. They have gained control of places of authority without any resistance.

In the face of this intensifying spiritual struggle, the church is floundering and confused, doing the same old things over and over again, but hoping for better outcomes this time, but knowing that it probably won’t work; knowing that they need more of the Holy Spirit, but unwilling to totally obey his voice.

At the same time, government leaders have been given more power than they have ever had, because they are expected to deliver us from evil and restore our lives to blessing, but they lack the wisdom to do what they promised.

An honest prophetic voice would be warning that the darkness rolling down on the land will be deeper and darker than anyone expect and it will take a long time for the light to penetrate and break it up. They should be warning that the opportunity for a traditional revival has passed and will not come back for some time. The spiritual powers of evil have entrenched their stronghold over the nation and they will not be pushed out easily.

At this time, an honest prophetic voice would be challenging God’s people to stop sitting around and waiting for revival prophecies to be fulfilled and use the time to get prepared so they can stand strong in a season of adversity. It would explain how they can position themselves in a place of strength, so they can share life and hope with those who are lost in the darkness.

Standing alone is the most dangerous place to be during an intense spiritual struggle. A church meeting and sermon once a week will not be sufficient to sustain Christians when they come under pressure. The Covid experience confirms that driving to a large church meeting on a Sunday to listen to teaching by a pastor might be a luxury that is not sustainable. The best possible protection during tough times is to be living close to other followers of Jesus who can provide emotional, spiritual and physical support when it is needed, not when the next meeting is due.

Followers of Jesus who live in close proximity to each other in a neighbourhood can stand together in prayer to establish an evil-spirit-free zone where the Holy Spirit is free to operate. This should not be a place to hide, but a base from which the kingdom of God can be expanded as the gospel is shared with those living around them who see the difference that the presence of the Holy Spirit makes. If these believers heal the sick and cast out demons in the power of the Spirit, the name of Jesus will be lifted up.

As these small kingdom communities grow, God will raise up elders from amongst them with balanced giftings, who will love one another and submit to each other to establish unity in the body. If one is taken out, or falls away, the others will continue to support each to watch over the flock to ensure that everyone is kept safe from evil and growing to maturity.

These kingdom communities will expand further by sending out their best elders as apostles (as others step up into their place) in a team with balanced giftings to establish a new community in another neighbourhood. They will carry on loving and serving each other, while listening and obeying the Holy Spirit, and he will keep doing what Jesus did.

An honest prophetic voice would explain that God’s plans for New Zealand have not changed. He still wants his people to take the good news of his Kingdom into the nation with sign and wonders following. He still wants us to show the world what Jesus meant when he said that his disciples would be known by their love for each other. God still wants New Zealand to be a light to the nations by demonstrating the fullness of his Kingdom by transforming society. He still wants Jesus to be acknowledged as king of New Zealand as the people freely choose to serve him and live together in obedience to his Spirit.

The main change is timing. Because opportunities have been missed, and the spiritual powers of evil are much more deeply entrenched in the authority structures of the nation, the spiritual struggle for the heart of New Zealand will be much tougher, and will take much longer. However, the outcome will be better and stronger, because it will it is established on a stronger foundation by being refined by fire.

For this to happen, God’s people will need strong prophetic guidance about how to deal with the pressure, and how to establish and grow kingdom communities, not vague promises about a coming revival that never comes.

This full series can be read at NZ Revival Prophecies.

Revival Prophecies (6) Real Community

During the 1970s, there was a massive buzz about real community. People were thinking seriously about Jesus new commandment and what it means to “Love one another as Jesus loved us”. They realised that this meant more than a meeting once a week. People were thinking about how the practices described in the first few chapters of Acts could be applied in the modern world.

This interest in developing real communities accompanied a hunger for deeper relationships, as the Holy Spirt inspired people to connect with and support other people. Various strands supported this interest.

• Teaching about body ministry was popular.

• Many Christians read Edith Shaeffer’s book called “L’Abrie”. While the nerds were reading Francis Shaeffer’s books about Truth and Reason, others were inspired by the story of their community in Switzerland.

• Speakers from overseas were sharing at conferences in New Zealand about their experiences in developing intentional communities.

• People were reading books about Christians who had developed a deeper community in their homes. One example was Love is an Open Home by Bill Bair.

• A friend had a vision of four houses close together with Jesus standing above them and shining his light upon them. This type of vision was common.

I am certain that the Holy Spirit was the inspiration for this interest in community.

Quite a few people tried doing something different. Most found it too hard and eventually gave up. Their struggle is not surprising because they were pushing hard against the world and the spirit of the age. The eighties were a very materialistic decade when everybody seemed to be working hard to get ahead.

Unfortunately, there was very little prophetic guidance or encouragement about how the people of the Spirit should live. One reason is that despite Ephesians 4 being studied assiduously during this season, the prophetic ministry was not really nurtured. Churches that were touched by the Holy Spirit continued to be pastor-centric, so it is not surprising that the movement did not get the prophetic guidance it needed.

Inspiration and guidance for the future came mostly from books and visiting international speakers rather than from a home-grown prophetic voice.

When the Charismatic renewal petered out, the prophecies about revival coming soon kept on coming. Looking back, it seems like they had missed a season of opportunity.

Part of the role of a prophet is to interpret the events of history and explain to the people what was happening. However, when the Charismatic Renewal slowly died out, no prophetic voices examined the move to understand what had gone wrong because they still believed revival was coming. No one asked seriously why such a wonderful opportunity had been missed.

I believe that the hunger for a deeper community back then was inspired by the Holy Spirit, but it is gone now. The buzz about community has died. This is a serious obstacle to revival coming at this time.

The next generation is watching The Block and other home renovation programmes on television and thinking about how they can progress up the property ladder. They are not thinking about what community means for those who have chosen to follow Jesus.

There is a lot of noise about the Kingdom of God, but it is mostly ephemeral, and there is no understanding that a kingdom is a social order, comprised of communities.

Revival Prophecies (5) What Went Wrong

In the 1970s, New Zealand was ripe for revival. The Holy Spirit was moving and touching people lives in dramatic ways. People were approaching friends and asking them to pray for them. They were asking them about the Holy Spirit. People were asking friends to tell them about Jesus.

It seemed that revival had started. Yet it didn’t kick on. It seemed like the revival was choked before it could get started. Recently, I have been thinking about why. The following are a few of the reasons.

• The move of the Spirit started in people homes with people praying for each other for the presence of the Holy Spirit. Many leaders tried to shift the life of the Spirit away from people’s homes into church meetings, but the gifts of the Spirit had to be managed to avoid disruption, but this control tended to suffocate spiritual freedom. Gradually, as the decade progressed, the life of the Spirit was sucked up by the church and the move suffocated.

• When church leaders tried to take the gifts of the Holy Spirit into their church meetings, things sometimes got unruly and important people got upset, so they were forced to establish control over the release of spiritual gifts in the church service. This eventually quenched the moving of the Holy Spirit, so the gifts of healing and deliverance became the prerogative of travelling ministries praying for needy people at the front of the church meeting, because they could be trusted to behave safely.

• People with potential leadership spread themselves too thin to be effective. Things that had happened when they were together, stopped happening when they went out on their own.

• Many of the leaders of the movement trained to be pastors and moved in the leadership of existing churches. They often had to compromise to keep everyone happy, which limited their freedom to follow the Holy Spirit and release his presence.

• The move was too quickly captured by the church growth movement. The church started to rely on technique and good organisation rather than on the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit. This brought order out of the disorder but probably dulled the move of the Spirit.

• The influence of the megachurch movement in the United States created a sense that big meetings were of more value than house meetings.

• The energy of people of the Spirit was put into worship in seeker-friendly services.

• Many people who had been active in the renewal moved into Pentecostal churches. Their emphasis on leadership by a pastor reduced the ability of these lay people to continue what they had been doing to share the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and many ended up being frustrated.

• Some laypeople tried to invigorate their established church, but this proved to be a hard slog, and the life of the Spirit was sucked out of them. There was no prophetic guidance about what was happening and what they should do; just the prophecies that revival was coming. Those who struggled in their dead churches assumed that these prophecies applied to their churches, so they kept trying, but with very little success.

• Some existing church leaders saw the success and jumped on the charismatic bandwagon, without diving in and learning to walk in the fulness of the Spirit. They found it hard to keep churches that had experienced the life of the Spirit moving forward.

• The spiritual powers of evil got up to all their usual tricks to weaken leaders with exhaustion in to disable them by pushing them into immorality. Some leaders were distracted into inappropriate roles. Others fell into adultery, and a few got caught up in sexual abuse. Some followers of Jesus were sucked into false teachings about end-times and political powers. The evil powers worked hard to bring division between people who should have been working together. The spiritual powers of evil do all they can do to snuff out a revival.

• The leaders of the movement were over-confident and did not take spiritual warfare seriously enough. Too many key leaders were taken out in various ways. A controlling and manipulative spirit wiggled its way in some places, mostly where leaders were insecure. This spirit choked the life and the gifts of the Spirit.

• Hunger for deeper community life was slowly stifled by the trials of life and gradually died. Failure to nurture this hunger and bring it through to fulfilment is one reason why we have not received the revival that was prophesied (more on this in my next post).

Revival Prophecies (3) Fifty Years

I have recently been thinking and writing about the numerous prophecies that revival would come to New Zealand. I first started hearing them when I became a Christian during the 1970s. At that time, the nation seemed to be far more open to the gospel than it is now (I will say more about that in a future post). The prophecies about revival have kept on coming since then, despite the situation in New Zealand becoming much more difficult for the advance of the gospel than it was when I first heard them. The difference between that season and now is striking. Winning the nation for the gospel has become much harder over the last fifty years.

• Clergy are now openly mocked on television. If they appear in entertainment shows, they are made to look weak and foolish.

• Most weddings and funerals are now conducted by secular celebrants. Christian content is mostly gone from these ceremonies.

• The news media frequently report on sexual and physical abuse of children and women by church leaders and staff of Chrisitan organisations. Christians see these incidents as having nothing to do with Jesus, but that is not how the people of the world see it. They see Christian organisations condoning abuse. Christian leaders have lost respect, and some of the hostility attaches to Jesus.

• Mainstream media readily publish articles mocking the church.

• The culture has become increasingly secular. Many young people do not even know who Jesus is, and they know nothing about his life and ministry.

• People now get their ideas about life and the world from television and social media. The influence of the church as a thought leader has declined dramatically.

• People are used to listening to snippets on television and social media, so they don’t know how to listen to a sermon unless they are trained by church attendance. This means that preaching has become an ineffective tool for evangelism.

• Many people see church services as strange events that they would be frightened to participate in. They are scared of being embarrassed because they would not know what to do.

• Covid is going to limit the ability of the church to function in the way that it has in the past. It might be a long time before seeker-friendly services are practical.

• Many people see the church as an institution that attempts to control people, not set them free. It is seen as desperately clinging to outdated and repressive values from the past.

• When many people think of the church, they see an organisation that takes money off people who cannot afford it.

• Many people now believe that all religions are valid and people should be free to choose which one they prefer. Some believe that eastern religions are better than Christianity because they are less violent.

• When crises occur, people no longer look to God for deliverance. They look to friends and family, and government-funded social services.

• Pressure from social media makes living a Christian life increasingly difficult.

• The spiritual powers of evil have entrenched their authority in all aspects of the life of the nation.

• There are very few Christians in parliament. A significant number of MPs are really hostile to Christianity, and many hate the church. The church no longer has a serious voice in the political world.

• The current government is passing laws against Hate Speech and Conversion Therapy. The new laws do not define these concepts very clearly, so they have to be interpreted by judges. As social attitudes change, these laws could be used to silence outspoken pastors.

These changes make a revival that will transform the nation much less likely than it was when the prophecies of revival were first shared. So prophesying that revival is just around the corner, when it clearly wasnt when these prophecies were first made, doesn't make sense.

Revival Prophecies (1)

Soon after I became a follower of Jesus nearly forty years ago, I heard Christian leaders declaring that God would send a massive revival to New Zealand. This message of hope has continued to be proclaimed right up to the present day. Visiting speakers who flew into New Zealand would speak of seeing visions of angels, or bright lights, or something similar. They often declared that New Zealand has a special place in God’s eyes and that revival is just around the corner.

I have always believed in these promises, as they made sense in terms of my experience. I had been living as an atheist when God reached out and grabbed me with the gospel and prompted me to chose to follow Jesus. A year later when I was spiritually hungry, the Holy Spirit overwhelmed me and gave me a heavenly language to enlighten my prayer and praise. I have seen people healed and broken lives restored by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I do not consider myself special, so I have always assumed that if God could do these things for me, he could do them for other people just as easily. Consequently, I have always expected that God would visit us soon and bring revival to our nation. I have trusted the promises of revival given by the prophetic people and recommended them to others.

For the last forty years, this has been axiomatic for me. Humans are invigorated by hope, so we naturally cling to promises of hope. The hope of revival inspired much of what I did for God.

No Longer
After forty years, I still trust God as much as ever, but I am no longer convinced that the prophecies of revival will be fulfilled. I see no signs that revival is getting closer; in fact, it seems to be further away than ever (I will explain why in a future post).

Instead of just assuming that revival is coming soon, I am pondering why these promises have not been fulfilled, especially if they reflect the heart of God. I am certain that God is not the problem. I still believe that he is capable of sending revival if he chooses, but it has not come. If he is not the problem, it must be us. I assume that God’s people are the problem, not God.

I have now arrived at the conclusion that most of the promises/prophecies about a move of God were a true reflection of his heart, but he has been unable to achieve his purposes because his church was unwilling to do what needed to be done.

To contain a powerful visitation of the Holy Spirit on their nation, the church would have to make significant changes to the way that it operates. But the church and its leaders have not been willing to make those changes, so the hoped-for move of God has not come.

I see no end to his chokepoint. God knows what needs to be done to bring revival to the nation, but he can’t get his church to do what needs to be done first. I have very little hope that the situation will change soon, so the promised revival is probably further away than ever.

One role of the Old Testament prophets was to explain why promised blessings did not arrive as expected. When things went wrong in Israel, people wanted to know why, and the prophets were expected to provide the answers.

I am not very attentive to prophecies that restate the same promises of revival that have been repeated over and over again for the last fifty years. After all this time waiting, I am looking for prophecies that can explain why they have not been fulfilled.

I believe that repeated prophecies of revival are distracting God's people from hearing what he is really saying to them.

Revival?

I heard a preacher on television in New Zealand say that God is going to send revival to the church. There are several problems with this claim.

• Church leaders in New Zealand have been saying for the last 30 years that God is going to send revival; but it has not happened. That is not because God is incapable of doing it, so it must be because the church is not ready to receive revival.

• I don’t believe that God is saying that he will send revival. I believe that the is telling the church and its leaders what they need to do and how they need to change, so they can receive what he has for them. He has been saying this for at least the last forty years, but the church has refused to do what he is asking it to do. That is why our situation is so dire.

• Revival is not the solution that we need. Revival occurs when the church is lukewarm. It was relevant in a culture where many people still went to church out of duty and in response to peer pressure, but did not really know and love Jesus. These people were part of the church, but it was only a small part of their lives. They were “sort of” committed to God, but had little to do with him. These people needed revival, because revival wakes up and invigorates a lukewarm church.

  This is not our situation now. The people who are lukewarm left the church long ago and are not committed to living in the world. They don’t even think about God, let alone acknowledge him. They only people left in the church are seriously committed. They might be lacking in power, but they are not lukewarm, so a revival is not what they need. They need to be set free to function in the calling that God has for them (not just keeping the church system going) and they need the full power of the Holy Spirit to do it.

  The people of the world don’t need revival because there is nothing to revive. They need rescue. Their lives are being wrecked by the spiritual powers of evil, and they need God to see them free to live the life that he has for them.

  In this situation, the gospel needs to be different. When the church is lukewarm and asleep, a message of repentance will be effective. These people are claiming to serve God but have not bothered much, so they need to repent and choose to serve him seriously.

  In the modern world, most people are enslaved by the spiritual powers of evil. Telling them to repent of their sins is pointless because they already know they are trapped in the mess of life. They need to be rescued from their bondage, so a gospel of rescue/deliverance (which is pervasive in the New Testament) will be more effective in meeting people where they are. When someone is stuck in a deep hole, you don’t make them apologise for falling in before you rescue them.

Humility and Revival

I heard an American prophetic leader say that God needs a “strong America” to bring the billion-person harvest that they have been prophesying. This is not true. God could still accomplish his purposes even if America collapsed and disappeared.

We should remember that the greatest revival that has ever occurred in the world through history (many millions choosing to follow Jesus) took place in China:

• under a communist government
• without freedom to worship
• without funding from American Christians
• without the books of big-name evangelical leaders
• without pastors trained in the popular bible colleges and seminaries.
• without American missionaries
• without the protection of the US military.

God does not need “his man” as political leader to bring revival. Having his people in political power might actually be an obstacle to revival.

God does not need a strong America. It would probably be an obstacle to his purposes.

Wealth and Revival

The key to the fullness of the spirit is Christians Connecting with each other, loving one another as Jesus has loved us. He will only put his new wine in wineskin that is made of love.

The greatest barrier to Christians connecting is our wealth. In a traditional society, people were bound together by mutual obligation. I helped you with your harvest, and you helped me with mine. If a woman was sick, the other women came to care for her family. Most exchanges of goods and services took place through giving and sharing out of mutual obligation.

Most of these transactions have now been monetised. If I need someone to help with the harvest, I pay someone to help. If a woman gets sick, she pays someone to provide childcare and do the housework. Very little giving and haring takes place outside of immediate families.

Our wealth makes this possible. Most goods and services are now paid for with money. Wealth has contaminated our relationships. People form relationships with the people they work with or for recreation, but they have limited interaction with the people in their communities.

Christian relationships have been casualised in a similar way. We go to church on Sunday to receive services from the ministry team and pay for them with tithes. We have only casual relationships with other Christians.

God may have to take away our wealth to get us back into connection with each other. May be this the key to the evangelist David Pawson’s question to New Zealand. He asked.

Who is willing to pray for economic ruin to make revival possible.

This is a hard prayer to pray. I am not sure if I am up for it.

Church Strategy (3) - Shrinking Influence

The numbers within our cultural orbit are getting older and less like to change. Their numbers are shrinking rapidly. Young people are leaking across the boundaries in a huge flood.

If they get their model wrong, house churches can be limited to rescuing people that are falling out of the church.

Many of the people who join house churches are in danger of falling out of the church, because they are hurt. They were Serious Christians once, but bad experiences have deadened their passion. They are slipping out into Christian Memory. House Churches are a powerful tool for rescuing these people, but it is hard work. Many have been burned by over-zealous authority, so they are hard to get close to. Most carry unfinished baggage, so few will become world changers.

Revival
Many Christians are seeking a revival. Traditional revivals occurred among people with a Christian Memory. They were stirred by passionate preaching and revival meetings. Even if revival occurred in New Zealand, it would hardly be noticed, because it would only touch the lives of people within the shrinking twenty percent who have a Christian Memory. The rest of society would not be touched. Revival is a false hope for New Zealand and most countries in the West. Something more radical will have to happen.

NZ Spirit

Christianity in New Zealand is a funny thing. For more than thirty years, leaders and international visitors have been prophesying that revival will start in New Zealand and spread throughout the world. Alongside, this the idea seems to have taken hold that revival will just fall from the sky, automatically, without Christians having to do anything. May be that is why revival has not come?.

Revival is Personal

Here is a personal question. You will have been to church meeting and prayer meetings many times in the last year, but when did you get together with a couple of believers in response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and go the place where he was led and look for a person he wanted to touch? Your answer to that question probably explains why you have not seen revival.

The Holy Spirit generally touches one person at time. However, a multiplication process, allows the number of being touched can increase rapidly. If the number of people willing to carry his presence into the world increases quickly, the process can snowball and grow into a mighty move of God. However, the pattern remains the same. A couple of a people are used by the Holy Spirit to touch another. Revival comes as that process is repeated thousands of times among many people in many places.

Instead of looking for bulk Holy Spirit moves, Christians should get together in pairs or trios and be led by him to the place where he wants to move and to the person that the wants touch. They Holy Spirit moves when two or three people get together in the place where he wants to be. If a couple of them are filled with the Spirit and one is hungry, the Holy Spirit can do his stuff.

Revival His Way

If the Holy Spirit prefers to work through two or people who are committed to serving Jesus, then we need to find ways to get together with Christian friends. If the Holy Spirit wants to minister to another person, the pair of Christians will have to go to the place where they can find the unbeliever.

If the pair of Christians are not together, then the Holy Spirit cannot move. If the pair of believers are together but not in the same place as the unbeliever, the Holy Spirit cannot move. If the pair are in the right place, but they do not identify the person that the Holy Spirit wants to touch, the Holy Spirit will not be able to move.

Being led by the Holy Spirit is essential:

• The two or three Christians that the Holy Spirit wants to work through must come together

• They must come together at the time when the Holy Spirit leads.

• They must go to where the Holy Spirit wants to move. That place will usually be in the world, not a church or homegroup.

• They must find the person that the Holy Spirit wants to touch.

• They must know what the Holy Spirit wants to do, so they do not get in the way.

• The Holy Spirit will do the rest.

For this to happen, we must learn how to recognise the presence of the Holy Spirit. We will need to learn how to sense what he wants to do and who he wants to touch.

One day as Jesus was teaching….. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick (Luke 5:17).

The presence of the Holy Spirit was there for a different purpose that day. Often he inspired Jesus to teach. This day he was there to heal, and Jesus recognised it.

This is the way that things happened in the New Testament. This is the way that the Holy Spirit prefers to work. If we want to be part of his move, then we must be willing to do things his way.

Two and Three Revival

The usual experience in the New Testament is quite different. God mostly touched people one at a time in twos or threes.

Where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them (Matt 18:20).

The Holy Spirit prefers to work with groups of two or three. They must come together in Jesus name. That means that they are acting on his behalf, representing him to others. When a couple of people come together to represent Jesus, they Holy Spirit will be present with them.

Here is how it works. One person, or two friends, who are walking in the Spirit meet another person. That person is touched by the Spirit and turns to God. For example, in Acts 3 describes an incident where Peter and John met a lame man. They prayed for him and he was healed. I presume that he decided to follow Jesus. Only three people were involved, two of them Christians.

Philip was full of the Spirit when he met the Ethiopian politician on the South Road (Acts 8:26-40). The Holy Spirit touched the Ethiopians heart and he was baptised.

Even the 3,000 people, who were baptised on the Day of Pentecost would have been baptised one at a time by a couple of Christians. As they prayed for each person, they were filled with the Spirit.

In most the events described in the Book of Acts, one or two people walking in the Spirit ministered to an unbeliever. The person touched, healed, delivered chose to follow Jesus.

Sometimes a crowd would watch. Some would to go a Christian or pair of Christians and ask them about what they had seen. If the Spirit is with them, the seeker will be drawn to Jesus.

Sometimes the person touched will tell their friends. If someone is interested, the person who was touched will take them to meet with another Christian. If the Holy Spirit is present, the inquirer will be touched by him.

When Jesus sent out the seven-two disciples, they went in power pairs. They were his representatives. The Holy Spirit went with them and did mighty works. The key to his presence is two or three Christians going out into the world as representatives of Jesus.

These articles are here.

Bulk Action Revival

Many Christians are looking for revival. Unfortunately, they do no understand what they need, so they are looking for the wrong thing. Most expect a bulk movement of the Holy Spirit in which millions of people will be touched by God in an instant. One reason that Christians like this form of revival is that it comes spontaneously from the outside without us need to do anything. That last point may be the reason why it has not happened.

The Holy Spirit sometimes hits a big group of people altogether at once, but that is relatively rare. The Day of Pentecost is one example. The Holy Spirit fell on 120 people all at once, but that is not normal. God was kicking of the age of the Spirit with lively start.

The other bulk ministry is described in Acts 10, when Peter was preaching to the family and friends of Cornelius. The Holy Spirit hit all the believers at once, but this situation was unique, because God was trying to “kick start” the apostles to take the gospel to Gentiles.

Seeking for a revival in which God does bulk action will lead to disappointment. It probably will not happen.

Crisis and Revival

Many Christians assume that the economic crisis will turn people back to God, but this is not inevitable. The escapades of the Christian Right have turned many Americans off the church, so they will be more like to turn to alternative religions in time of need. Many people are now so secularised, that God does not even cross their minds when troubles come. Church is not even on the radar. Troubled times might benefit the religions more.

Modern people look to the state when things go wrong. If Obama can kickstart the economy, that faith will be further boosted. A worse crisis will just turn people to the state. People in Africa and South America know that government leaders are crooks, who will look after their mates, so their only hope is in something supernatural. Americans have gone the other way. They see the church as crooks, looking after their mates. They will look to the state when troubles come.

To experience a harvest in times of trouble, the church will have to demonstrate a life that is viable, while all others are failing. In an economic collapse, pastor-centric, building-centric churches will be too busy worrying about their overdrafts and mortgages to be able to reap the harvest. Their members will be to busy struggling with their own hire purchase payments and credit card debt to reap a harvest. Non Christians who are struggling with debt will not take seriously churches and Christians who are stuck in the same sinking boat.

To reap a harvest during economic troubles, you will need a model of church that can bring life and hope to where people live. The point of the Commando Vision is that an economic crisis cannot produce a harvest, unless radical Christians get ready to function through tumult. The reason is that most modern churches will be wiped out by the crisis and will not be in a position to help others. I expect that the American church has too many F16 Christians and not enough commando Christians to bring in a harvest in troubled times. Therefore, I doubt that the Lord will put his church through a real economic crisis, because the risk of disaster is just too great.

Revival

Interesting quote. I cannot remember who the name of the author. I guess that is the way he would like it.

Do not use your name much when revival starts,
or God will take you out of it.