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| Tears for Revival | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 22 2009, 08:08 AM (87 Views) | |
| Stace | Mar 22 2009, 08:08 AM Post #1 |
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Fatherly Talk 4.22 The tears for revival by Pastor Peter Tan Dearly Beloved As I write this today, my eyes weep for revival. During the late twentieth century to the present time, the teaching that is coming from pulpits around the world has shifted away from an encouragement to Christians to spend more time with God to a shallow one which encourages Christians to spend less time with God. This can be found in the many ‘feel-good’ sermons that tell Christians that since God has done everything for them in Christ that there is no need for them to do anything including the seeking of God. There are also misconceptions of faith teaching which implies that one does not have to spend any more time with God since one merely ‘receives by faith.’ The total result of these new blends of teaching is that many Christians no longer spend much time in prayer, fasting and seeking the Lord. Surely, this is not the direction in which Jesus wants the church to go. In fact, we should be spending more time with God and not less time with God. Why are such current views so popular? Firstly, I believe that many such preachers themselves do not spent much time with God. How can one encourage others to spend more time with God when they themselves do not see the benefit of doing so? Once in an Australian church when I was speaking to a pastor about having an all night prayer, the first reaction was ‘What was the point of praying so long? Doesn’t God hear our prayer already when we pray in Jesus Name?’ It seems that all people are interested in is what they can get out from God – which they rightly believe since the price is paid by Jesus and no other price needs to be paid; thus there is no longer a requirement to do anything but to accept what Jesus has done. What a selfish and self-centred attitude! Is this what Christianity has come to? Are we only interested in spending time with God just for ourselves and what we can get out from it? It is a symptom of the selfishness and self-centredness of our present world system creeping into our modern church in a similar manner in which the immorality of the Corinthian city was creeping into the church of Corinth. It is hard to see our own selfishness when so much of popular Christianity is coloured by loving of oneself. True and pure Christianity is not about ourselves but about giving our lives to others the way Jesus gave His life for us (1 John 3:16). Why do you think Paul, who could have a good life, choose to have labours more abundant, suffer stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often, receiving thirty-nine times five (195) lashes from the Jews and three times beaten with rods? (2 Corinthians 11:23-25). Is it not because of his great love (which he received from Christ) for others (2 Corinthians 2:4; 5:14). How did Christianity take the revelations of the apostle Paul in his epistles and produced a life-style totally opposed and different from that which the apostle Paul himself espoused? How did Christianity take the self-sacrificing faith that our Lord Jesus taught and lived as an example amongst us and turned it into a self-indulgent lifestyle Christianity? This is not to say that there are no self-sacrificing Christians. There are many faithful and good ministers and Christians whose lives are exemplary but we need more of such. The sad thing is that many times those who are self-sacrificing Christians and ministers have a wrong understanding of the teachings of the Bible which definitely includes blessings, wealth and influence as per Deuteronomy 28:1-14 and as per Abraham’s blessings and as per Matthew 6:33. They propagate a gospel of poverty like St Francis of Assisi. Such teachings are not going to help the average Christians, who are not called to be like St Francis of Assisi, and who need a faith that can help them believe God to earn and provide for their families. Nor does such teaching help the Christian professionals and businessmen and women who need to know how to believe God to help them be the head and not the tail in the difficulties of the commercial world. Within about 800 years of Christianity since the time of St Francis of Assisi, Christianity has moved from the gospel of poverty to the gospel of prosperity. It was a right reaction to the anti-world, anti-achievement and anti-good life Christianity that was popular in centuries past. However, we might have over-reacted and swung to the other extreme and have become the pro-world, pro-achievement and good-life indulgent Christianity that is now the popular veneer. Alas, we have become the Laodicea church (Revelation 3:17)! The proper reaction now is not to swing back to the hermit type Christianity of years gone by. The proper reaction is to teach Christians to use their new found wealth and favour sacrificially. To live a life not for this world but for heaven. To lay up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys (Matthew 6:20). Jesus is not opposed to wealth: He is opposed to covetousness. He is opposed to the holding on of wealth for selfish use. We also need to return to God on our knees to spend more time with God and not more time in the world. We need to return to the times when we love God so much that we would spend hours (even days) in His presence because we love His person and His presence. We need to spend time with God in intercessions and prayers for those who do not know Him and for revival in His church. We need to repent not just for ourselves but also on behalf of others. Daniel was a righteous man who was already used to spending regular time with God (Daniel 6:10). When he calculated that a prophetic word from Jeremiah for the return of the Israelites to their own land had not come to pass, he humbled himself in fasting, sackcloth, ashes and prayers repenting for all the people of Israel (Daniel 9:3-19). His heart-wrenching cries were heard by God and he was comforted by God’s angel revealing the timing of God’s promises. Where are the Daniels and the Jeremiahs today who will cry for God’s people? Jeremiahs said that his eyes overflow with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people (Lamentations 3:48). His head was as water and his eyes were a fountain of tears as he wept for the slain of the daughters of his people (Jeremiah 9:1). Why do we not cry when the sick are not healed in our midst? Why do we not cry when the unsaved are so many in our cities? Why do we not weep when all our programs for reaching the world for Christ are so unsuccessful in turning our society around? May God give us the compassion to weep for sinners and the grace to bear His glory to them. We have the blessings and the provisions of Jesus but do we have the heart of Jesus? We need the same heart that wept and cried before He raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:35). Why did Jesus wept? He had the faith to raised Lazarus from the dead and He knew He would raised Lazarus from the dead. He wept because He loved Lazarus and Mary and Martha. He wept when He saw Mary weeping (John 11:33). O that we might hear and see the sufferings of those who do not know Him. O that we might understand and feel the pain and sorrow of those who need our Lord Jesus! There is a bottle in the Spirit World where our tears are kept (Psalm 56:8). David was a man after God’s heart (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). David was also a man who knows what it is to spend much time in tears before the Lord. There were times when he drenched his couch with tears (Psalm 6:6). In his cries he exhort the Lord to hear his prayer and to give ear to his cry; and not to be silent at his tears (Psalm 39:12). His hunger for the Lord was such that he sees himself as the deer that pants after the water brooks (Psalm 42:1). He thirsts so much that many times he went without food in seeking the Lord and his tears had been his food day and night (Psalm 42:2-3). Although he acknowledged the Lord delivering his soul from death and his eyes from tears, he also knew that it takes the continuing sowing in tears to bring the harvest of sheaves of revival (Psalm 116:8; 126:5-6). The apostle Paul was a great man of revelation, visions and teachings from the Lord. He was also a man of tears. He knew what it is to serve God with many tears (Acts 20:19). Although his writings ring with authority and power, we must not forget that when he preached, he preached with great compassion warning everyone night and day with tears for three years (Acts 20:31). In his three years of sowing night and day in preaching and in tears in the city of Ephesus, Paul reaped a revival that shook the entire city with great signs and wonders (Acts 19:10-12, 26). His epistles were written with many tears (2 Corinthians 2:4). When he sought for good strong capable disciples and ministers, he did not just look at their spiritual qualifications, faith and reputation, he look to see if they bore the compassion of Christ. He wrote to Timothy that he was mindful of his tears as much as of the faith which Timothy inherited from his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:4-5). When God first called me to the ministry, I was moved by God opening my ears to hear the cries of people suffering in hell. I was then a young man of only eighteen years of age and knew and understood very little of the Bible and of the things of the Spirit realm. But in the early hours of that morning prayer up on the roof top of an apartment, a light shone upon me and I heard the anguish and cries of those who do not know God and were suffering in hell. I was so deeply moved that I wept for a long time. It was then that I heard the call of God to the ministry. Through the many years of ministry, many tears have been shed in prayers and in situations but the most precious tears are those shed in prayers for those who have yet to know God. It is then that one feels the closest to the heart of God, who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son to us. It is then that one feels closest to the heart and compassion of Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us. To truly comprehend the mind of Jesus Christ, one must first feel the heart of Jesus. In times of unbelief and struggles beyond problems the mind can solved, situations the understanding can comprehend, and reasoning that can’t make sense out of adverse circumstances, it is our tears of humility before God that break through into victory. With tears running down his cheeks, the father of the demon-possessed boy said, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). His boy was immediately freed. Our tears are precious to Jesus. The woman with the alabaster flask of anointing oil, washed the feet of Jesus with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed the feet of Jesus and anointed them with expensive fragrant oil (Luke 7:38). She did it because she loved Jesus. She loved Him much more than Simon the host did (Luke 7:42-47). How much do you love Jesus? We do not always weep in love for Jesus but has there been any time in your life when you were in the presence of God and Jesus and the love you felt so moved you to tears? If you have not, one thing thou lack; the most precious and intimate moments of pure oneness with Jesus and the Father God when His love and compassion fills our lives until tears flow from our eyes. There are times when we rejoice and shout, there are times when we peace-filled and in quiet repose, but there are also times when we need to taste to overflowing tears the love of God. It moved David tears, it move Paul to tears, and the love Jesus had for us moved Him to tears. Does the love of God move you to tears? Does it melt the hardened heart like ice before the sun? Do we love Jesus as much as the woman with the alabaster flask of oil? May our love for Him have moments of overflowing tearful compassion brought forth by His love for us. In Christ Jesus Ps Peter Tan (posted with permission) |
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1:53 PM Nov 25
