Revival – First We Need Focus
The Need For A Revival
Revival is the word on at least some people’s lips these days and it is not hard to understand why. A quick look around and you see how the majority of churchgoers are comfortable visiting buildings that ring to the sound of ‘smooth words’. Religious leaders oblige this morass with slick promises of physical blessings from a God that is there solely to hand out rewards to all those under the grace of that roof.
Are we in some kind of a game where Bernie Madoff is the role model? The popular Church is turning into nothing more than a spiritual Ponzi scheme top heavy with biblical innuendo. The end result can no more deliver on its promises than the prophets of Baal could ignite their sacrificial fires. If the offering from the pulpit is not an empty promise then at best it is a glass of lukewarm milk.
Isn’t any one hungry?
Is ‘revival’ an answer? Yes, but probably not the sort that first comes to mind. I was thinking more of the ‘mouth-to-mouth’ kind for someone who is not breathing. The Church is as good as dead; poke it with a stick, it won’t respond. Beat it with a stick, it still lays there, mute, oblivious under layers of corporate flab.
Let the dead bury the dead. That candlestick is about to be removed.
Any Kick Left In The Church?
There are still some that have not kissed the mouth of Baal.
That’s just as well because Malachi says that if there is not some sign of life, some kick left in the Church at the ‘end’ then Christ would have no alternative other than to ‘smite the earth with a curse’ and call the whole show off. The King James ‘a curse’ is correctly read ‘total utter destruction’: the full meaning of the Hebrew in Mal 4:6.
Who is Written In The Book?
If we are not reading God’s word with tinted glasses then we are likely to be amongst those who are “sighing and crying for all the abominations done in the midst thereof”. Irrespective, behind the scenes there is a ‘man with a pen and inkhorn’ recording our every response.
We want to be in that book.
There are always critical moments in history when biblical men and women stepped up to the breach.
This is one of those times. Many people recognise the spiritual vacuum that exists, from there the critical need for change should be obvious.
What Are We Trying To Achieve?
So, the question therefore is, what do we do about it?
This is the key issue and it is also the problem. Something is missing.
That something is the clear consensus of where we are going.
Those that fail to plan are planning to fail. That has always been the lesson.
We need a focus and objective. Traditionally for all of God’s people starting with Christ as the prime example, that has always been to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. That is what Christ and the disciples taught.
What is that Gospel? More precisely what is the kingdom of God? That is question one.
The second question that needs to be resolved is the detail for the return of Christ. The Churches are hopelessly divided on that subject.
If you do not know where you are going, you will end up going nowhere.
How can there be a meaningful ‘revival’ while so much discord and distrust or at the very least plain lack of understanding surrounds these subjects?
Albert Einstein said: ‘If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough’.
That is where the Church is today. It does not have enough clear understanding about the kingdom and the return of Christ to explain it simply.
We had better get cracking!
