Friday, July 20, 2012
Building People of Substance for Works of Power
Revival time, Friend. It’s on!
This week I am in Nezahualcoyotl, a suburb of Mexico City, teaching and preaching in a Congreso with Pastor Roberto Milian and his associated churches. I watched this morning (Thursday) as the workmen put up a tent in the street outside Don Roberto’s modest home. This will effectively block this small residential street for three days. During this time, there will be from 50 to 150 people coming and going twice a day. Morning and evening a rather loud worship service will take place, followed by amplified preaching. Then meals will be served to the whole crowd. In order to do this for the second time in two months, Don Roberto had to get the permission of the city, and of his neighbors. I wonder how many cities and neighborhoods in the United States would be open to such a thing. In our increasingly Christ-averse nation we have effectively allowed the Gospel to be relegated to a corner of the collective consciousness. Where we once had churches as the center of every neighborhood, we now have to fight to get permits to hold a Bible study in our homes. We have the right to curse in public but not preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Our cities are covered with violent and profane “art,” but we are protected from exposure to crosses and nativities.
I guess the bottom line is simple: it is high time for a revival in the United States of America. Like Samson in the temple of Dagon, the Church will shake off the shackles of political correctness and dependence on political solutions, and be the Body of Jesus Christ one more time. Our perverse politics and politicians are not the problem, they are the symptom of the problem. We need fewer lawyers and more Christians: Christians in the schools, Christians on the job, Christians in the street, and Christians at McDonalds. Christians who are ready to quit debating the ridiculous (abortion and homosexual marriage and the theology of islam and ad nauseum, things that are too obvious to merit serious discussion) and begin proclaiming the miraculous. On moral issues we could use some plain speech. On social problems, the love of God might be appropriate. On issues theological, nothing matters but that Jesus is Lord! With all due respect to government officials, I will not shut up because it might offend an unbeliever. It offends my God if I allow the unsaved to hit Hell without having heard the truth. Oh God, revive our pitiful nation and let the feelings of the Philistines be irrelevant! (I would say “be damned,” but someone would surely be offended)
Somebody Said: “If there is one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire better than another, it is a brave man, – it is the man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil." James A. Garfield
Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 3:8-11 NKJV Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads. (9) Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house." (10) Moreover He said to me: "Son of man, receive into your heart all My words that I speak to you, and hear with your ears. (11) And go, get to the captives, to the children of your people, and speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ whether they hear, or whether they refuse."
Please forgive my Jeremiad, but the stench of decay in our nation just overwhelms me sometimes. Maybe I am just getting old and cranky, or maybe I am tilting at windmills, but I just have to say something lest I burst. Revival or bust!
vls
pastorvirgil.com 