Repetition is the best teacher, and after my long into, I will be summarizing perhaps my 3 main points that I believe unlock the key to revival in America. If America is to wake up, the church needs to wake up. If the lost are ever going to see their lost and hopeless condition, the church needs to see their compromised and heartless condition.
Two people die every second but Christians in America prove by their actions their words mean nothing. We say we love God which would mean we would love what he loves and hate what he hates. Jesus came to save and seek that which is lost. Do we honestly care with an urgency that people are dropping into hell like lemmings off a cliff? Are you really saved? Did you give out a tract today? Did you witness and stand unashamed? Did you deny yourself this week? For example, could you skip lunch this week and use the money to buy a hot dog for a homeless man instead?
Did you think about the thousands of babies murdered today in doctor’s offices, and the way America shakes it’s fist at God and how the Bible says there will be a great falling away during the last days? Did you pray for America and it’s leaders to turn to God? Did you do anything to salvage any of those who slipped off into eternity today, or those in your family who could burn forever at any moment? Did you spend more on missions this week or on take-out? Did you read your Bible more than you read text messages? Did you spend more time talking in prayer or talking on your cell phone?
If we are honest we all need our spiritual flames rekindled.
That is the purpose of the ETVFC. To equip you to do what was normal for Christians up until 100 years ago and make us fruitful firemen in our local church. After we first wake up and see our lukewarm condition.
I will be the first to admit I don’t have it all figured out. I am consumed with wanting to see the world saved and overwhelmed where to begin! Today was one of my more expensive ministries, the Wal Mart ministry. I believe God called me to go to Wal Mart to give out tracts but every time I enter there is this hidden $100 admission. It adds up. Thankfully I can use the $100 to buy things I need anyway, like diapers and English muffins (which goes good with it’s European cousin, French toast). Not only is Wal Mart costly, it is convicting. I have a 4 year old named Elijah, and his name is a perfect fit. If I give him a tract he races out and runs toward the first person he sees and holds out his hand until they take a tract. He once ran up to a Muslim decked out in her full black sand trooper outfit! I found out I am not as bold as I thought I was. I wanted to hide.
I am a one-tract pony. I give out tracts when shopping but usually only give them out to guys my age who seem to be not high salaried self righteous jerks. Old grandmas especially cause my knees to tremble. Entering a toll booth, I will have a tract ready but when it is an old lady there who looks like she could eat me and my car alive, I slowly put the tract away and give her my toll money. Where is Elijah when I need him? He is my secret weapon when it comes to old people, rich people, snobby Catholics, my extended family, and the entire Muslim population.
Today after finishing my shopping I was torn, first my wallet was hurting a bit. But I was excited because we gave out a huge stack of tracts. I gave out at least 2 and the remaining 30 or so Elijah did. I think my other son Josiah gave one out as well. Then I think the devils must have noticed because as we entered the bread aisle my older son Josiah started running laps around the bread aisle and finding my cart where I was getting the frozen mini-pizzas. Then Elijah followed him. I had Zech in my cart and wasn’t able to just take off. Usually I will say, “ok boys, I am leaving now without you” or “ok boys, I am now putting back the toy you picked out” and they come back. They so far haven’t caught on that I lied as I have yet to leave them on any trip, and I had already put the toys back they grabbed along the way. That didn’t work. Well, it soon was rather terrifying as next Joe hid from Elijah and Elijah was at the opposite end of the aisle and couldn’t find us.
Instead of running down the aisles where I could catch him, he ran across the aisles and headed toward the check out. I took off with the other two and looked like a nut, but I soon found Elijah, and I brought all three to my wife waiting on the other side with Obie, our youngest. She put all 4 in the cart and took them out. I went from beaming evangelist to humiliated father in no time. Pride cometh before destruction. Man, I hate the pruning process. And oh my, even though I can’t hear it, I know the devils are whispering and conspiring any chance they get. I told my wife that, and her response was, “They don’t run around for me.” Yes, dear. But they don’t give tracts with you out either so the devils leave you alone, was what I was thinking. I didn’t say it though. That is why I blog.
Anyway, I wanted to try and summarize things.
Ok, if I had to put the prescription for reviving America on paper here it is.
Correct the dose.
Change the drug.
Convince the disease.
They are addressed in earlier posts, but basically:
1. Correct the dose. We dispense Jesus 80 mg once weekly today and before people took Jesus 1,500,000 mg every 8 hours and we wonder why our results are so anemic. Meaning trade the 5 minute Romans Road and other microwaved evangelism tactics for the hours of sowing, watering, and preaching the law and judgment of God that produced the fruitful revivals of years ago. The right dose at the right duration. Not a 5 minute plan to go to heaven. A 5 month or 5 years of intense plowing and fertilizing and planting and pruning and weeding program that requires patience and sweat and work and people! Break up the follow ground first with some solid uprooting of the gods of America, plant second with the word of God, water next with fasting and prayer, and then get a month of more intercessory prayer and another month of revival meetings and then we might see true revival in the land when we have an invitation. One planted, one watered, but God gave the increase. Instead of a soulwinner doing it all and getting the entire pat on the back from start to finish. We might have truth in the Romans Road, but the dose is too weak to cure the sinful condition!
2. Change the drug. The Jesus of the Bible is not the long haired Jesus of Catholicism. The book of Isaiah 53 says there is no beauty that we should desire him. Jesus was not the blue eyed blond haired romance novel cover boy that is portrayed by most of modern Christianity. I heard a preacher state that this is what the AntiChrist is going to look like and the idol image we have is going to fool the world. We need the right Jesus and the right dose administered the right way, via faith and repentance. A wrong Jesus cannot save just as the wrong drug won’t help. And there needs to be a removal of the sugar coating on it. When you use the world to draw the world, you look like the world.
3. Convince of the disease. Preach the law of God and the holiness of God and the wisdom of his requirements to the extent the world cries out WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?