Why We are Failing the Great Commission
Chapter Twenty-eight
ATTITUDES FOR REVIVAL
Scenario:
two children of the same age are caught doing something completely wrong. One of these children was raised in a
Christian household where he was taught the Word of God and was a believer
clearly understanding the boundaries between right and wrong. The other child grew up in a moral vacuum
absent of any moral ethic having never taught the child what was right and what
was wrong. From which of those two
children would you expect righteousness and whose failure was the most
heinous? This scenario is to what Peter
speaks in I Peter 4:17; “For the time is come that
judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at
us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”
God expects MORE from His children than He does from the lost and
ignorant children of the world. THIS IS
NORMAL!
Revival is the supernatural working (blessing) of God upon
and through the life of a consecrated and sanctified believer-priest who
seeks to do the will of God as revealed by the Word of God with the passion and
love of Christ intent upon solely glorifying God.
The portion
of Scripture called the Sermon on The Mount is probably the single
portion of Scripture that best establishes the New Testament theology of
revival and the criteria necessary for any real revival to ever take
place. Revival is
quenched by BAD ATTITUDES and activated through repentance.
Many local churches have experienced
revival at various times in their history to varying degrees. Oftentimes revival on smaller scales is not
even recognized as revival, but the reality is that any act of God’s blessing
on a life is to some degree revival. Revival
is God’s life (the Shekinah; glory) shining out of the darkness of sin and
corruption through a believer’s life.
Every sunrise reminds us of the way things ought to be! The longer that light shines, the more
evident is the revival. If this
statement is true, then Christ’s statement in Matthew 5:16 is a command for
revival in the lives of all believers.
Our
theology of revival (what we believe God’s Word teaches about the matter) will
determine how we seek revival and how we interpret the events surrounding
revival. We could spend much time
discussing inaccurate theology regarding revival and therefore the
misinterpretation of those times when revival was evident on large scales or we
can simply try to establish a Biblical theology regarding revival and
re-interpret those times of revival according to that theology. I choose to do the latter. I do not argue with the historical fact of
those times of revival. However, I do
disagree with the establishment of a theology of revival based upon the
interpretation of the events of revival.
The opposite should be true. We
should establish a theology of revival and then interpret the events of revival
from that theology.
The Lord uses the word “blessed” nine times in Matthew 5:1-12. Therefore, we must conclude its meaning to be very
significant to the purpose of His teaching.
It is from the Greek word makarios
(mak-ar'-ee-os). The simplest dictionary
definition would be happy or joyful, but that does not give the
whole meaning behind the word. The
real emphasis is not on the joy as much as it is on the source of that joy. The joy is the result of the supernatural
working of God in one’s life because a person has become what God wants him to
become. Being blessed is the result of being
right with God. Being right
with God results in doing what God
says to do and God supernaturally working through that doing.
Theologically, blessedness
is a state of existence within the realm of God’s “working all things together
for good” (Romans 8:28). The nine uses
of “blessed” in Matthew 5:1-12 define the conditions necessary for a
believer to enter into God’s realm of blessedness and are the details of
what God means by the qualifier of “all things work together for good to
them that love God” in Romans 8:28. The
nine uses of “blessed” define what loving God means. The first step towards revival is when
believers get their hearts right with God. Getting our hearts right with God is what the
nine “blessed” of Matthew 5:1-16 are
about. Revival ALWAYS begins with repentance in the mind and heart and then
moves to the feet.
“1 And
seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him {inner circle truth for ‘born
again’ believers only}: 2 And he opened his mouth, and taught
them, saying, 3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are
they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the
earth. 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for
they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for
they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are
the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the
children of God. 10 Blessed are they which are
persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when men
shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be
exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted
they the prophets which were before you. 13 {now begins the
outcomes of being ‘salt’ and ‘light’ because a ‘born again’ believer
maintains these attitudes of repentance} Ye are {present
indicative; a fact of your present state of existence in the realm of
blessedness} the salt of the earth: but if
the salt have lost his savour {the distinctions necessary to blessedness}
, wherewith shall it {‘the
earth’} be salted? it {the
‘salt’} is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be
trodden under foot of men. 14 Ye are {present
indicative; a fact of your present state of existence in the realm of
blessedness} the light of the world. A city
that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a
candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light
unto all that are in the house. 16 Let your light {the
distinctions necessary to blessedness} so shine before men, that they may
see your good works, and glorify your Father which is
in heaven” (Matthew
5:1-16).
The
first essential to a theology of revival is to differentiate between the
blessings upon the children of Israel in the Old Testament (Mosaic Covenant) and
what happens in the New Testament (the New Covenant; a dispensational
hermeneutic). On the Day of Pentecost, a new dispensation
began with a New Covenant governance.
The Day of Pentecost came fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. On that day, God’s Spirit came
into the world in a unique way. This is
a critical truth to a New Testament theology of revival and blessedness. All the covenants that God makes are made
with believers. They are always
sanctificational in nature and define conditions necessary for believers to be
blessed of God and live in “fellowship” with God.
Salvation
brings the sinner into the potential for blessedness from God but does
not automatically give those blessing to the believer. This is a major difference between the gift
of eternal life in salvation and that eternal life issuing from the saved
believer’s body through the indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit. Practical sanctification is essential to
blessedness from God. Each of the nine
uses of “blessed” in Matthew 5:1-11 define attitudes (be-attitudes
that lead to actions) necessary to practical sanctification.
In the
Old Testament, the Shekinah glory of God descended upon the Tabernacle to give
a visible evidence of God’s presence to the children of Israel. However, before the Shekinah glory of
God descended on the Tabernacle, every other item of service of the tabernacle
had to be put in order (Exodus 40:1-38).
All those various elements that made up the whole of the Tabernacle
complex were essential elements for the children of Israel to live in
fellowship with their Redeemer and to have His blessing upon them. Although each aspect of the Tabernacle was
only typical of a spiritual reality, each was an essential element for
maintaining fellowship with God. This
is the substance of the Sermon on the Mount!
Living
in fellowship with God, the “blessing” aspect of the Mosaic Covenant and the
New Covenant beatitudes, is the essential and common truth to both New
Testament revival and Old Testament revival. The difference between how that fellowship is
achieved and maintained in these two different periods of history
(dispensations) is fundamentally different. It is evident that maintaining fellowship
with God in the Old Testament was very complex.
On the Day of Pentecost all of that changed. A new dispensation of grace began. The Shekinah glory of God descended upon the
Tabernacle of God just as in the Old Testament, but that Tabernacle was now the
body of a believer individually and corporately (the “body of
Christ”).
We
sometimes hear this new doctrine of the Spirit without really taking into
consideration the overwhelming and broad ramifications of the responsibilities
it relates to the believer. Let me try
to illustrate it for you.
“1 In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be
. . . : and there was. . .” (Genesis 1:1-3).
When
the Word of God says He “created,” it means He brought something into existence
that did not exist before and He made it out of nothing. It is said
that a group of scientists one day came before God and told Him that they were
so advanced in their knowledge that they did not need Him any longer. So, God told them to show Him their
progress. They proposed a contest to
God. They and God would each create a
man. The best one would win the
contest. God agreed and the scientist
reached down and grabbed a handful of dirt to create his man to which God
immediately said, “Oh no, you need to get your own dirt.”
When God
created the heaven and the earth, it required power beyond human comprehension,
let alone ability. In the creation, God
simply released some of What He is to generate His thoughts into a physical
reality. Something was not
created from nothing. Something was
created from the will of the power of God.
When God’s
glory descended upon the Old Testament Tabernacle, that visible reality was
evidence to God’s redeemed that the power of God was present with them. That power of God was and is the Person of
the Holy Spirit. That power of God made
evident in the Shekinah glory was the same power of God that spoke the heaven
and earth into existence.
On the Day of Pentecost, it was
that same Shekinah glory that descended upon all believers indwelling them and
immersing them into the spiritual living temple of “lively stones” to
which the Bible refers as the “body” of Christ making each of believer part of
the New Creation “in Christ.” SELAH
Stop right there for a moment and think
about that truth. The dispensation
of grace (enabling power) centers on the reality of the indwelling presence of
the infinite power of God in the body of every believer. The power of God is the Person of the Holy
Spirit that spoke the heavens and earth into existence now resides in the body
of every person who has been “born again” of the Spirit of God (regenerated). That means, if you have been saved, you are
part of the New Creation “in Christ” and the Shekinah glory of God lives in
you.
The
simplicity of New Testament revival is that when your life is lived in
fellowship with God, beginning with the nine be-attitudes, the Shekinah
glory will begin to shine through you. Deciding to generate the nine be-attitudes
is where the command to “let your light so shine before men” BEGINS. That is what Christ means in Matthew 5:16
when He says, “Let your light so shine before men. . .” We shine when our lives are right with God
(Matthew 5:3-12) and the indwelling presence of the Shekinah glory of God in
the Person of the Holy Spirit reveals Himself in the “fruit of the Spirit” through
our lives (Galatians 5:22-23).
It seems
apparent that early Christians understood the singular importance of living in
habitual fellowship with God. The
importance of living in habitual fellowship with God is communicated in John chapter
fifteen by the word “abide” and it is directly connected to the blessing of God
upon the production of “fruit” through the believer’s life. All historical revival is marked by a
return to holiness, prayer dependency on God, and a right relationship with
God. This always resulted in many
people coming to trust in Christ.
Anytime people start getting saved, revival is happening at some level
in a person’s life.
Anytime people get saved it is the
result of revival in a believer’s life. A person getting saved is the “fruit” of
revival and should not be confused with the act of revival. Revival is when a person brings his mind, his
heart, and his very soul into harmony with God and His Word (the nine be-attitudes). The focus of revival must be on a right
relationship with God beginning with a complete change of attitudes about God
and sin. The right relationship with God
is the focus of the change of attitudes (repentance), not the “fruit.”
Three realities must exist in a
believer’s life before revival can happen.
1.
The believer must know the truth. God’s truth reveals what sin is. God truth reveals how God wants us to
live. We cannot do what is right
until we know what is right.
God’s purpose in teaching us truth is to restore the image of Him
distorted by the fall so that we might once again have proper worship of Him
(doxologically) and a relationship with Him in holiness (deontologically).
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth” (II Timothy 2:15).
“16 All scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of
God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (II Timothy
3:16-17).
2.
The believer must translate known
truth into doing (obedience from the heart, James 1:22-25). No matter how much truth you know, unless you
put flesh on that truth by doing it, nothing is accomplished through
that truth. No one will ever get saved
by you knowing the Gospel. People get
saved by hearing and heeding the teaching and preaching of the Gospel.
“22 But be ye doers of the word, and not
hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be a hearer
of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face
in a glass: 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and
straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25 But whoso
looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he
being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed
in his deed” (James 1:22-25).
3.
The believer must be right with God
through the confession and repentance of sin and yielded to a cooperative
partnership with the indwelling Holy Spirit (I John 1:3-9). “Fellowship” is the Bible word for this
cooperative partnership with the indwelling Holy Spirit. When a group of believers come together in
this cooperative “fellowship” a synergy is created and their combined “light .
. . cannot be hid.”
“3 That which we have
seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us:
and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ. 4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may
be full. 5 This then is the message which we have heard of him,
and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If {every ‘if’ relates to a necessary condition of
reality} we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness,
we lie, and do not the truth: 7 But if we walk in
the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. 8 If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John
1:3-9).
Understanding this trilogy for
revival helps us understand why revival is a rare commodity in many
churches. It is rare in many churches
because this trilogy rarely exists consistently in the lives of believers. Knowing truth will not produce “fruit” until
the believer lives known truth and he cannot live that truth until he is right
with God and allowing the indwelling Holy Spirit to live through his body
(Romans 6:11-13).
“11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to
be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey
it in the lusts thereof. 13 Neither yield ye your members as
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as
those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of
righteousness unto God” (Romans 6:11-13).
This trilogy of spiritual
essentials is the subject matter of John 15:1-13. It is also the subject matter of the Sermon
on the Mount.
“1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the
husbandman. 2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh
away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may
bring forth more fruit. 3 Now ye are clean through the word which I
have spoken unto you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch
cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye,
except ye abide in me. 5 I am the vine, ye are the branches:
He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for
without me ye can do nothing. 6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast
forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them
into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If ye abide in me, and my
words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be
my disciples” (John 15:1-8).
The
struggle to make this spiritual trilogy for revival a consistent reality of our
life is the struggle for the Christian life. In most part, it is a struggle within us and
our corrupted thinking and attitudes due to our fallen natures. That is why Christ leads off His Sermon on
the Mount in Matthew chapter five with the be-attitudes. It is a difficult struggle. It is a struggle to possess and process the
“heart” of God through our lives.
This
struggle is what defines the “warfare” of the Christian life. This struggle is what produces true spiritual
growth in our lives. Some individuals
grow to live such consistent lives that they produce many disciples for Jesus
Christ. The Apostle Paul was one such
individual. We can see his understanding
of this struggle by reading Romans chapters six, seven, and eight as well
Ephesians 5:1-18 and 6:10-18. This
struggle for the be-attitudes was a priority to Paul.
Most Christians do not gain the discipline
of a consistent life lived in this trilogy.
We have occasional bursts of light like a flashbulb going off and some
“fruit” is produced. However, if we want
to be spiritual lighthouses producing “much fruit,” we need to
learn to habitually “hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
Seeking
the face of God and living in fellowship with Him must become the central
motivating force in our lives. When
the Bible speaks of the believer being “filled” with the Holy Spirit, God is
not talking about “filling” the believer to the maximum capacity of that
believer’s body. When the believer is
“filled” with the Holy Spirit, the believer is “filled” with the infinite power
of the Creator God. When the believer is
“filled” with the Holy Spirit, the infinite creative power of God begins to
overflow in his life in all three areas of the trilogy of revival. Truth is understood and lived. Fellowship with God is evident in
everything that believer does and says. “Fruit”
is produced. Souls come to Christ
when that believer tells others of Christ.
The “fruit” of the Spirit is evident.
Regeneration of the lost and transformation of the saved take place.
When the
Holy Spirit of God controls every aspect of our lives, the Shekinah glory of
God within us will burst forth as “light” into the darkness of this world. The believer’s life will be a bright light
shining in the darkness guiding men to find Christ and His wonderful gift of
salvation bringing glory to God the Father.
Letting our light shine means getting our selfish desires, attitudes and
practices of life out of God’s way. Carnality
and/or doctrinal compromise, to any degree, stops the overflow of His
transforming power that God’s wants to flow into and through our lives.
Why did God
create billions of stars and thousands of galaxies of stars and planets? God created these majestic lights in the
heavens simply for humanity to look up and see them and wonder at the majesty
of the Being that put them there. You
are intended to be a up-close light of His majesty. The Spirit of Christ is the “true Light”
that “lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9).
“Let your light so shine
before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is
in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
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Numerous studies and series are available free of charge for local churches at: http://www.disciplemakerministries.org/
Dr. Lance Ketchum serves the Lord as a Church Planter, Evangelist/Revivalist.
He has served the Lord for over 50 years.
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