The Kingdom of God Is Here NOW
When Jesus commissioned people to go out and preach, He commanded them to proclaim something, not just lay hands on sick people. He said to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 10:7). How different that is from what most people, even ones who believe in healing, are preaching today! There is a big emphasis on “revival,” a word that is not even used in the New Testament!
Rather than proclaiming that the Kingdom is here now as Jesus commanded, most people put it off into the future and talk about the greatest revival ever to hit the earth that is “coming” at some point in the future. I have heard this for decades. I told God a long time ago that I am not waiting for some revival to hit; I will just go do the works that Jesus commanded right now. I have been privileged to see results that many people would associate with some kind of “sovereign move of God,” except that it wasn’t sovereign at all. While man waits and waits and prays and prays for a move of God, the truth is that God is waiting for a move of man! He is waiting for people to just believe His Word and go act like it’s true. Anywhere where people will do that, there will be a move of God, because God moves through man, not independently of man! He has to, because He gave man dominion over this earth. He gave the earth to the children of men (Psalm 115:16), which means that He can’t just barge in and do whatever He wants whenever He wants.
Some people think that if they study past revivals, they will somehow qualify to flow in a new revival because they will be revival experts or something. I beg to differ. No “move” has ever been the same as a previous one anyway. I know people who have tried to copy what people did years ago, assuming that if those actions led to revival, they will lead to revival today. Their attempts didn’t work, of course. What they’re missing is that what they did back then may well have been what the Spirit was inspiring them to do, but that doesn’t mean that He’s inspiring the same specific action today in a different age and a different culture. My advice to you is that you major a lot more on studying the New Testament than you do on studying past revivals. Faith comes by hearing the Word, not by studying interesting experiences from the past, though they can at least inspire us. And, of course, we need to do the only thing that Jesus said in all seven letters in Revelation 2 and 3 to do: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” We need to do what the Holy Spirit is telling us to do NOW, not what He told others to do way back when.
Many today also have an unhealthy obsession with figuring out where this incredible revival will start. The answer is easy – it will start in the immediate vicinity of whomever you ask, in some cases at his church, because someone has already come along and prophesied it. There are “prophets” who pretty much proclaim at your church (if you’re silly enough to let such people in) that your local fellowship will be the epicenter of the last-days, end-time worldwide move of God, and surely it shall emanate out from your church like the spokes of a wheel. The trouble is, that’s the same thing they told the last several churches they visited that are nowhere near yours. They’ve learned that such messages get them invited back because people are itching to hear what they say.
Even in New England, where I lived for decades, I can think of several churches that have had prophesies like that; there are probably many more but I’m only counting the ones I’ve heard in person. They were all somehow going to be “the” catalyst for revival in New England. (Interestingly, at least one of these churches doesn’t exist anymore, though I witnessed a well-known preacher give a “like-spokes-of-a-wheel” prophecy over this now-defunct church when he visited it many years ago.)
In fact, even in my prior home state (Maine), I heard the following: (1) Revival shall start in the western mountains of Maine and spread across the state like a fire (this was given in the western mountains of Maine), (2) Revival shall hit the coast of Maine like a tsunami and shall spread inland throughout Maine (I heard this on the Maine coast where I used to live), (3) Revival shall start in Aroostook County (the northernmost part of Maine) and sweep south all over Maine from there (this was prophesied in Aroostook County), (4) Revival shall come in through the East Gate – the easternmost part of Maine out by Calais, Eastport and Lubec and spread westward (you can guess that this one was NOT given in Portland), (5) Revival shall sweep up the coast from Kittery (the southernmost town); you can guess that this one did not originate in the western mountains, Eastport or Aroostook County. You get the idea. We had people in Maine tell us that God always “comes in through the eastern gate,” so the end-time move of God MUST start in the easternmost place in the United States. However, if you get technical, St. Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands), is part of the United States (it’s a territory) but it’s farther east than Maine. Does that mean that St. Croix will be the true Eastern Gate? No, wait, if you get even more technical, the western Aleutian Islands are across the 180-degree meridian and are thus technically farther “east” than anywhere else in the United States, including St. Croix! Maybe the Aleutian Islands are the true Eastern Gate from where revival will flow, though I don’t think I want to move there and find out. It makes more sense to drop the whole Eastern Gate thing, frankly, and just start “doing” revival rather than debating where it will originate.
I have also heard reports that the big move of God will (1) Start in Alaska and hit the lower 48 states from there (so some say in Alaska), (2) Start in Florida and go across the southern part of the country, hit California and then come back across the northern part of the country, (3) Start in Maryland and proceed outward from there, (4) Start in New York City and move north to Boston and then the rest of New England, (5) Hit Boston and move on from there (a bunch of people in Boston were strongly promoting this prophecy, of course), (6) Start in the Caribbean and spread to the world from there (I was assured of that by friends in the Caribbean). (7) Spread to the world from Mexico (I saw a video of someone in Mexico prophesying this in Spanish) and…well, you can probably add the “prophesies” you’ve heard wherever you are about how it’s actually where you are that this mighty move will start, and maybe they’ll need to build a new international airport to handle all the people who will come in for the revival (that was actually said somewhere too).
This shows a sad lack of discernment in the Body of Christ, because obviously if there are 100 such prophecies, at least 99 of them must be false prophecies. However, I don’t see the purveyors of these prophecies being shown the door, which means that people are hearing and believing a lot of false prophetic ministry these days. The Body of Christ needs to take scriptures about judging prophecy a lot more seriously. 1 Corinthians 14:29 says “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” We are not to blindly accept prophetic words even if the person gets really excited and says, “Thus saith the Lord!”
Jesus, on the other hand, discouraged looking for where revival would hit because He taught that revival isn’t going to hit you from here or there. He taught that it would come from within you!
Luke 17:20-21:
And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
What most Christians are praying for is already within them! While Christians pray to no avail for God to pour out His Spirit ON them (a useless prayer for anyone who is already baptized with the Holy Spirit), God yearns to pour out His Spirit THROUGH them right now.
Now THAT is what we have to get the Church to see! Rather than waiting for the kingdom of God to manifest somewhere and spread, we are to go out and manifest the kingdom of God ourselves! NOW!
Revival does not happen when believers cry, “Send revival!” Revival happens when believers cry, “Send ME!”
Joel’s prophecy that the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, and that outpouring has been available ever since! Any teaching that an outpouring of the Spirit must wait for any particular new action from man has to be wrong. Did you ever notice that Paul didn’t ask the Ephesians if God had poured out the Holy Spirit on them or if God had given them the Holy Spirit? He asked, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit?” (Acts 19:2). He has already been “poured out” and “given” and now needs to be “received,” not begged for or tarried for.
You will not get people in the proper attitude of faith by telling them that some sweet day (any day now), the heavens will open and a big revival will happen, and there will be signs and wonders and they can get miraculously healed. On the other hand, if you let them know that the kingdom of heaven is at hand to heal them RIGHT NOW, people will receive miracles. Faith can only receive NOW, so people need to know that the power is available NOW, not when some future revival hits.
We do ourselves a great disservice when we conclude that God in His “sovereignty” has chosen a specific spot for revival to start for some unknowable or capricious reason. At least one thing you can learn about revivals is that people always spearheaded them. God will move wherever there is a hunger for Him to move and where people actually believe and act on His Word! It is not up to God willing it, it is up to us to decide if we will welcome the Holy Spirit and act on truth. It isn’t based on a geographic location; it’s based on the faith of God’s people. It’s not about “where” but rather about “who.” Where the Word is taught accurately and the Holy Spirit is welcomed, God will confirm His Word with accompanying signs (Mark 16:20).
On the other hand, congregations that are part of the modern “Ashamed of the Holy Spirit” movement and forbid speaking in tongues on Sunday morning, blatantly disobeying 1 Corinthians 14:39 because some people might get upset and leave, need not be concerned about what to do with revival crowds, because God will look elsewhere for a place to demonstrate His glory – it won’t be in some sorry dead establishment that cares about the approval of men more than about the approval of God.
Teaching that great power will be available someday in a coming revival robs the church of the opportunity to flow in what is already available today. Here is something to think about. What exactly do you think that God can give you in the future that he hasn’t already given you? He has given you every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). He has already granted to you all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). If you are baptized with the Holy Spirit, you have already received power (Acts 1:8). You have the same Holy Spirit Jesus had, not some weak, watered-down Holy Spirit Lite. What spiritual resource are you expecting to get that you don’t already have? What do you think that God is holding back from you? Romans 8:32 says, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” while Psalm 84:11 assures us that God will not withhold any good thing from them that walk uprightly. Some would have us believe that God is withholding certain resources from us and that he will only release them in answer to certain kinds of “revival prayer.” I don’t see that anywhere in the New Testament. Do you?
Believers today sing in vain, “More love, more power, more of You in my life! More of You, more of You – and less of me! Pour out your power and love as we cry Holy, Holy, Holy! Anointing, fall on me! Let the power of the Holy Ghost fall on me! Send the old-time power, the Pentecostal power!” But God has already poured out His love in your heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). He already gave you all the power you need when you received the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). You did not receive 62.7% of Jesus when you were saved and you do not have 31.2% of the Holy Spirit. You do not need more of God. You received the Lord all at once, not on an installment plan. There is no more of Him to get. (You might need to cooperate with Him more or spend more time hearing from Him, but that’s a separate issue. You can write your own song about that.) In fact, God even said explicitly that He doesn’t give the Spirit by measure (John 3:34 – click on this to see some important comments about why this verse has been mistranslated to give the wrong impression that God only gives the Spirit by measure to us). You have an anointing from the Holy One (1 John 2:20). The anointing abides in you (1 John 2:27). He who has anointed you is God (2 Corinthians 1:21). Stop crying out for more anointing and start letting the anointing you already have flow out of you like rivers of living water (John 7:37-39)! If believers in your area would do that, you’d have the kind of move of God people would call a revival!
Now let’s look at sixteen particular popular myths about doing things that will “produce revival,” and you can see if you have wasted your time getting caught up with them! If so, you can find better uses for your time.
First, there is the idea that we have to kick the principalities out of our municipalities to make revivals realities. You don’t have the authority to drive them out of town; if you did, the Bible would say so, and it doesn’t. (Where will you send them, to somewhere where people don’t pray as much? To somewhere in the Arctic? To Jupiter to keep the Great Red Spot company?) Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever made principalities leave towns, yet they had “revival” without doing it, so why shouldn’t we? Principalities have the same right to be here that Satan does. Satan is not holding revival back with some kind of vast spiritual power. Satan is nothing more than a defeated liar with a big mouth and the same applies to his minions. It is up to us to spread the truth that contradicts the lies they try to spread. Real spiritual warfare is a war of thoughts that is fought on the ground, not up in the stratosphere somewhere. You can safely forget making little spiritual maps of which demons control which areas. Your time would be much better spent mapping which streets you’ll evangelize next! You don’t get people saved by rebuking some spirit of unbelief and commanding it to leave. When Jesus encountered unbelief in Nazareth, he didn’t cast the spirit of unbelief out of town. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. If all you do is pray for the lost, they will stay lost. They need you to tell them the good news. If binding demons over cities could really produce revival, it would have done so a long time ago, as this useless action has been attempted for decades despite the fact that the perpetrators usually declare that this is some kind of fresh revelation from heaven. And besides, if you could really do it, you could invalidate Ephesians 6:12 in your town, as no one would wrestle with principalities there ever again. If Paul could have done that, surely he would have done it.
Second, there is a related notion that if we open a “hole in the heavenlies” through worship, God will somehow pour out revival through that hole. That is also an unknown practice in the New Testament. What we think of as revival happened when they went out and preached everywhere. The Lord worked with them and confirmed the Word with accompanying signs (Mark 16:20). Besides, the heavenly hole theory makes Satan look really big and powerful, as if he could stop God from doing anything by stretching his power all over the area, and poor little God can only manage to cram something through a narrow hole in Satan’s overwhelming force field, and then only if believers exert themselves greatly to open that teeny hole. Do you see how backward that is? Satan is the one who is defeated, not God. He hasn’t just brought a knife to a gunfight; he’s brought a water pistol to a nuclear war! He’s completely outmatched and outclassed. JESUS has ALL authority on heaven and earth. Because He does, how much authority is now left over for Satan? Do the math! Satan is the like the Wizard of Oz, putting on a big show while begging you to pay no attention to the weakling behind the curtain who is actually putting on the show.
Third, there is the idea that massive prayer for revival will cause God to pour out revival. In other words, God is holding back on us, but if enough people bug Him long enough, he will cave in and do it. That means that we actually want revival more than He does. Do you see how ridiculous that is? The word “revival” is not even in the New Testament, much less instruction to pray for it. Yet some people purport that to really see God move, we must establish 24/7 prayer (which perhaps must be accompanied by 24/7 worship and other 24/7 things). I have visited a city where they have been doing the 24/7 thing for a very long time and been warned not to go into certain areas at night if I value my life. If all that prayer was really going to change the city, wouldn’t it have done so by now? No one on the street seems to be aware of any kind of “move of God” going on there despite decades of non-stop prayer. I’m not against prayer or worship, and if you are part of a group that just gets a kick out of taking shifts where you pray and/or worship from 2 to 4 in the morning on a regular basis, don’t let me stop you! But it’s foolish to think that the only way to see a move of God is such literally constant prayer. I am personally of the opinion that you would get a lot more accomplished if you had 24/7 evangelism, though I’m not seriously suggesting that you have to evangelize around the clock either. I even heard one person propose that if you shut the devil out of your area, but fail to have someone praying from 2 to 4 in the morning, he’ll sneak back in at that time. That’s silly. You can’t shut the devil out of the area anyway no matter how many hours you pray. Jesus couldn’t even keep the devil out of His final meal with His disciples; Satan entered into Judas in that very room! Jesus couldn’t stop Satan from manifesting his thoughts through Peter in Caesarea Philippi. If Jesus could just make Satan leave town, why didn’t he do it after his first temptation in Luke 4 so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the second and third temptations? If Jesus couldn’t just move Satan out of those areas, what makes you think you can? What we really need to do is reach sinners with the gospel so that they can then be taken out of Satan’s dominion into the kingdom of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13) and be taken from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18).
The only thing even close to praying for revival was in Acts 4:29-33, and that was primarily a prayer for boldness to evangelize: “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.”
Even then, if you look carefully, you’ll see that they were NOT praying for God to step in and do sovereign signs and wonders on His own. They asked that the signs and wonders be done in the NAME of Jesus. Jesus never comes down and uses His own name! It was obvious that THEY were the ones who were going to use the NAME of Jesus to command signs and wonders to be done, and this would only be possible when they were out proclaiming the good news with boldness. And so it is today. We don’t need a “sovereign move of God,” we need boldness to preach and then command things to be done in the name of Jesus. (Consider how self-contradictory it is for believers to cry out for a “sovereign move of God.” If He does that in answer to our prayers, it isn’t “sovereign” at all the way the church thinks of “sovereign!”) Praying for GOD to do signs and wonders is not the New Testament pattern, but praying for BOLDNESS is.
Fourth, there is the idea that massive regional and national fasts will cause God to pour out something new. Aside from the fact that you’ve never seen that actually work, it misses the whole point of fasting in the New Testament. Fasting does not move God. (Prayer does not move God either; He’s quite fine as he is – we are the ones who need to move from where we are.) Fasting in an attempt to influence God is a hunger strike, not a fast! Fasting is designed to keep your flesh under control. Fasting is biblical and believers should practice it, though they need not go on some of these ridiculously long fasts that are being “called” by some people. (No one “proclaimed a fast” in the New Testament, though people did fast. Think about it.) If you asked many people why they are fasting, they would say, “So that God will pour out revival.” But again, what are you without right now that you must fast to get from God? Also, the word “fast” means to “not eat!” So it is unbiblical to say that you will “fast television” unless you mean that you are not planning to eat your television, which is a good idea because televisions contain many non-user-serviceable parts that could harm your digestive system. Some people call it a “fast” when they give something up for 21 days, as Daniel gave up “pleasant bread, flesh and wine” for 21 days. I suggest that we just extend the period to 40 days and call it “Lent” – wouldn’t that be original? If practicing Lent never caused an outpouring of power before, why should it today? Besides, there is no such thing as a “Daniel Fast” because what Daniel did was not called a fast in Daniel 10 – the word “fast” does not even appear in that chapter. Because the word “fast” means to “not eat” and Daniel was still eating, he was not fasting in the biblical sense. Some have suggested that Daniel did what he did to break the power of the Prince of Persia, but the power of the Prince of Persia was not broken at all – the angel said he had to go fight the Prince of Persia some more when he was done with Daniel! In Daniel 10:20, the angel said, “and now I will return to fight with the Prince of Persia.” Besides, the angel never said, “Danny Boy, I need your help in prayer right now to defeat the Prince of Persia. If you’ll just do more prayer and Daniel Fasting, he’ll become The Entity Formerly Known as Prince of Persia.” You don’t have to defeat the Prince of Persia or the Prince of Peoria or the Prince of Poughkeepsie or the Prince of Prince Edward Island because Jesus defeated all such “princes,” stripped their power and publicly humiliated them (Colossians 2:15). Stop trying to do what Jesus already did!
If people would fast more than they do in general, they would probably live less in the flesh and God would do more through them. But that is not the same thing as trying to “move God” with fasting.
Fifth, there is the idea that if people in an area obey “prophetic mandates” given by “generals,” they will see God move in their area after they have carried them out. There are two problems specific to this as well as the general problem of relegating God’s power to the future. First, “general” is not a ministry office. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are mentioned in Ephesians 4:11, but not generals, let alone further subdivisions into “one-star generals,” “two-star generals,” “three-star generals” and so on, as implied by a self-proclaimed “three-star general” I heard once who claimed he’d just gotten his third star from the Lord. Ministers are servants, not lords over God’s heritage (which we are told NOT to be in 1 Peter 5:3). Furthermore, there is no such thing as a “prophetic mandate” in the New Testament where a prophet gave believers in a certain area specific instructions that would produce revival. Old Testament prophets sometimes gave mandates with ultimatums, and you had to obey them or get eaten by a bear or something. But Agabus, a New Testament prophet, never commanded anyone to do anything. He foretold a famine, but he did NOT command the believers to do anything specific about it. They made their decision based on what Agabus said, but not in response to a “prophetic mandate.” Agabus gave a personal word to Paul about what would happen to him in Jerusalem, but he did NOT tell Paul to go there or not go there, and this was not a mandate for the body in general. In Acts 13:1-3, the Holy Spirit spoke to the church at Antioch to separate Barnabus and Saul (Paul) for the work He had called them to; this probably came through one of the “prophets and teachers” assembled there, but this still was nothing like a prophetic decree for the body to obey. Although Acts 21:4 says that disciples (not prophets) in Tyre “told Paul though the Spirit not to go to Jerusalem,” (see Acts 21:4-5) this could not be classed as a “prophetic mandate” in the modern sense because no prophet was involved and only one person was given the instruction, not the “in Tyre” Body of Christ. It is debatable how much of a personal “mandate” this actually was, because the Lord never rebuked Paul or told Paul that he had missed it by going to Jerusalem. It seems that it was an open-ended choice the way that Agabus left it. However, if we take the verse at face value, it seems that the Holy Spirit really was telling Paul not to go there. Another explanation, if that is the case, would be that the disciples were telling Paul not to leave for Jerusalem during those seven days that he was there (Paul stayed there seven days) and that he was free to go after seven days (Acts 21:5: “When we had come to the end of those days, we departed…”) but I’ve never heard anyone else propose that at this writing, and it still seems kind of thin. Another explanation is that they told Paul not to go to Jerusalem through what they THOUGHT were the gifts of the Spirit, but THEY were actually the ones who missed it trying to operate in those gifts. I favor that explanation, which actually comes into play when trying to interpret the hardest verse in the book of Job (see Job Explained). In any case, Acts 21:4 is certainly one of the hardest verses the Bible to explain and I don’t claim to have the last word on it – other than the fact it doesn’t support “prophetic mandates” as given by some.
Sixth, there is the idea that we must have Joel 2-based wail-and-travail meetings to have revival. I guess in some cases these meetings are supposed to show God how sorry we are for sins we didn’t even commit (other people in the same nation did them), while in others people may be weeping and wailing over their own sins. (By the way, they don’t call them wail-and-travail meetings – that’s my term – they are usually advertised as “solemn assemblies.”) Aside from the fact that such solemnity doesn’t seem to be in line with the joy unspeakable and full of glory that is ours in Christ, whose kingdom consists of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17), this is yet another case of basing New Testament behavior on an Old Testament Scripture. Even people who run these meetings can’t produce a single New Testament Scripture to back the idea. I asked one of the organizers of such a regional event once to give me a New Testament verse for it and he admitted he didn’t have any. His take was that because Joel is in the Bible, we should obey it. But you could take that same reasoning and say that we should slaughter sheep, goats, turtledoves, pigeons, etc., because commands to do that are also in the Bible – in the Old Testament. Besides, those who want to “weep between the porch and the altar” saying “spare your people, O LORD…” (Joel 2:17) should go ahead 11 verses to a wonderful promise that God would pour out His Spirit on all flesh (Joel 2:28), which was fulfilled in Acts 2:2-4. The New Testament places no premium on sitting around telling God how sorry you are, and if people would spend the time they spend at such meetings reaching the lost, there is no telling what kind of positive impact it would have on their areas. It is a sorry idea indeed that what we call “revival” would hinge on us proving to God how sorry we are. This whole wail-and-travail idea is an example of the too-common mistake of trying to shoehorn Old Testament principles into our new and better covenant.
But isn’t James’s command to “weep and howl” in the New Testament? Yes, but it only applies to cheating rich murderers in its context (James 5:1-6). Are you a cheating rich murderer? If not, you do not need to weep and howl.
Seventh, there is the idea that we must pray mediatorial prayers as Moses did so that God will forgive our nation for its awful sins. “Spare us Thy fierce wrath for all the unborn children we have murdered and the concessions we have made to those who flaunt vile, unnatural lifestyles” would be a typical cry at such a meeting, though they might use less bold language. The idea is that God is mad at the whole country, and in His anger, He has decided not to freely give us all things any more, in contrast to many Scriptures cited above. It is also implied that God has not forgiven these sins, while in fact the blood of Christ was shed for every one of them so that the perpetrators would be forgiven. God’s “anger” would also disprove the idea in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that God ISN’T holding sins against people. Supposedly our prayers will remit these sins so that God can smile on the land once again. But God’s answer to the sin in your nation is not praying about it – it is the shedding of blood, without which there is no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22). That shedding of blood has already been accomplished. Every person who has committed murder or engaged in an unnatural act can be reconciled to God on the basis of the blood that already paid for these sins. We cannot expect that Jesus will have to be re-crucified after we pray so that these sins will be forgiven. While these prayers seem biblical because they’re in the Old Testament, they are notably absent from the New Testament that defines the covenant we have. Also, under our covenant, Jesus is the one mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). You are not called to do His job, which He is perfectly good at Himself. So stop trying to “stand in the gap” between fallen man and God and point people to the Bridge over the gap – Jesus!
Eighth, there is the related idea that we must pray a blood curse off the land because the blood of unborn babies is crying out from the ground for judgment on our land, and that until we pray off that curse, we can forget about a move of God. This is based on Genesis 4:10, where the blood of righteous Abel cried out for vengeance, but it overlooks Hebrews 12:24, where we learn that the blood of Jesus speaks of better things than the blood of Abel. Abel’s blood cried, “Judgment!” but Jesus’ blood cries “Mercy!” Jesus’ blood provided forgiveness for every abortion (murder) ever committed. Think of the condemnation this “blood curse” argument heaps on people who have had, urged, or performed an abortion – “All this is your fault, baby killer!” We need to be telling them instead, “You’re forgiven! God loves you and did something already so that this won’t be held against you. Receive His Son today and know His forgiveness!”
Ninth, there is the popular and oft-cited notion that if God doesn’t judge our country, he will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus, God is seen as an angry withholder of revival, and supposedly the only way God can move is if we stop all the immorality in our land and get the perpetrators to repent. But sinners aren’t about to stop sinning unless they receive Jesus! You can’t expect them to stop sinning without Jesus’ help! And if one sin stops God from moving, won’t any other sin do the same, in light of James 2:10? (If you break one law, you break the whole Law.) Besides, what about the fact that God hasn’t appointed us to wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9)? God does not judge the righteous with the wicked! I think that a good argument for a pre-Tribulation Rapture is that before the awful Tribulation judgments to come, God has to get His own people out so that they aren’t judged along with the wicked. (I realize that end times are a complex subject. I have good friends who do not believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture. I am aware of Bible-based arguments for only a Second Coming after the Tribulation. This issue should not drive a wedge between Christians because it’s a non-essential subject.) Look at the much-cited case of Sodom. The angel said he COULD NOT do anything until Lot got out of there (Genesis 19:22). The only righteous people in Sodom were removed, and had to be removed, before judgment could fall. It would be inconsistent for God to judge your country with the righteous still there! In fact, even under the Old Covenant, He’d spare a place if He could find only ten righteous people there (Genesis 18:32) – do you have more than ten righteous people where YOU are? Besides, most of you could say that there are far more sinful places than the one you live in; why wouldn’t God’s “judgment” start there instead?
God already judged every sin in your country when they were all laid on Jesus. There have been no “national judgment” prophecies since Jesus spoke what He did over Jerusalem before He died on the cross. Under our covenant, prophets do not proclaim woes on nations. Also consider the fact that homosexuality, drunkenness, idolatry and many other sins were common in the Roman Empire, but none of that stopped Jesus or His disciples from working miracles in an area controlled by that empire. Why should you think that these sins will stop Him from performing miracles through the Church today where you are?
Tenth, there is the idea that we have to OBTAIN God’s forgiveness by observing 2 Chronicles 7:14, implying that God has NOT forgiven the sins in the land, but if we humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways, He will hear from heaven and THEN forgive our sins and heal our land. This was a great Old Testament promise, but it is problematic to apply it to a covenant where forgiveness has already been purchased by the blood of Jesus. You will NOT find anywhere in the New Testament where anyone exhorted Christians to have prayer meetings for the purpose of national forgiveness, despite the fact that 2 Chronicles 7:14 is accepted in most churches today as the pattern to follow.
Also, the irony is lost on most people that if you believe that 2 Chronicles 7:14 applies today, you MUST believe that GOD is afflicting the nation with sicknesses and other troubles. You see, that verse does not stand alone. It is NOT a sentence beginning with the words “If my people.” The entire thought properly starts in the previous verse and consists of an If…Then statement. “If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” So verse 14 only applies in a case where verse 13 is true. If you do not believe that verse 13 applies today (I don’t), then verse 14 does not apply today either. Do you believe that under grace in the Church Age God is withholding rain, sending locusts and sending epidemics? I don’t. Has there really been no rain in your country and are you currently overrun with locusts? If not, verse 14 does not apply. (Sorry if I just ruined your favorite “revival” prayer verse, but somebody has to say it.)
A second irony is that you must believe that you and the other Christians in your country are still practicing wickedness. Otherwise, this Scripture could not apply, as part of the condition is that God’s people turn from their wicked ways!
Eleventh, there is the teaching that we must repent on behalf of our nation of the wickedness being practiced in it to obtain God’s blessing on it, or alternatively, to avert His fierce wrath on it. I challenge you to find anywhere in the New Testament where you can do other people’s repenting for them! You can only repent for your own sins, not the sins of other people in your nation. They will have to do their own repenting or miss out on what they could have had if they had repented. A bad cousin of this teaching is that you must confess the sins of your nation before God can move there. Supposedly Daniel is our example in this regard, but he lived under the Old Covenant, and he only confessed Israel’s sins, not the sins of the heathen in Babylon where he was at the time. Nowhere in the New Covenant is there any mention or example of confessing other people’s sins. Once you go down that road, it never ends. Do we confess yesterday’s national sins? A week of national sins? A month? A year? A decade? A century? How will you even know all the national sins that have been committed during any time period? Where does it end? It doesn’t, because it’s yet another time-wasting religious treadmill.
The early Spirit-filled Church was able to just go out and preach Jesus to the lost; God worked with them doing signs and wonders (Mark 16:20, Hebrews 2:3-4, just for starters). No one back then had to resort to the weird modern works in this discussion, including repenting for and confessing the sins of any nation.
Twelfth, there is the idea that misdeeds done to the original native inhabitants of your land are now stopping revival, and revival won’t happen unless we have special meetings to “reconcile” with these people and tell them how sorry we are for past injustices and pray to erase the “curse” on our land caused by the shedding of their innocent blood. I fail to see in Scripture where native people’s blood is more meaningful than anyone else’s. (I’m a direct descendant of an influential Mohawk chief but my blood is the same as anyone else’s to God.) You owe me no apology for things you didn’t do to me yourself. This gets back to Genesis 4:10 and Hebrews 12:24 cited above, and the fact that every misdeed done to every native person was forgiven by the blood of Jesus and is NOT a factor holding back revival. The Roman Empire committed plenty of injustices to various people groups, and that didn’t stop God from moving back then. Also, do you really believe that crimes against native people are a special kind of sin that the blood of Jesus did not deal with, and that such sin can only be remitted by special prayer? Prayer doesn’t remit sin – only innocent bloodshed does, because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22). This still didn’t stop people where I used to live from having a “Native Reconciliation” meeting to “cause revival.” It didn’t work, but years later someone else had the same “revelation” to have such a meeting thinking that IT would cause revival. (It didn’t either.) It’s the same problem I keep pointing out – if we’d go out and reach the lost and use our authority, our time would be better spent than in these highly emotional but highly useless meetings.
Thirteenth, some Satan-glorifying Christians assert that witches have put a curse over the area and only intense united prayer will be able to break it. They are always the first to mention which covens are in the area, and they’re afraid of the curses the witches are supposedly doing. Apparently, they haven’t heard yet that there is no witchcraft that works against God’s people (Numbers 23:23) and that a causeless curse shall not alight (Proverbs 26:2). Christians trample ALL the power of the enemy and nothing will hurt them (Luke 10:19). If they would be as keen to discern what God has already done as they are what the devil claims falsely that he can do, we’d all be better off. There is not a single case in the New Testament where it was necessary to break any witch curse off an area before God could move. Satan and His minions are ALREADY defeated (Colossians 2:15) and you have ALREADY overcome them (1 John 4:4). So who cares what the defeated witches are up to? I don’t. Besides, if you prayed your allegedly mighty prayer and it really broke witch curses, wouldn’t the witches just invoke some new curses for you to spend your time breaking?
I couldn’t be bothered with people who want to waste my time with their fearful talk about what Satan is up to. I really don’t care. I’d rather know what GOD is doing.
But I’ll even caution you on that. I know someone who was practically glued to Christian TV all day because this person did not want to “miss out on” anything that God was doing in the earth today. But being a “revival news expert” will not help you bring “revival” to your area. (This person proved it.) You would be better off spending your time praying, studying the Word and evangelizing than trying to keep up with what miracles are happening in what meetings this week. I’m not saying it’s wrong to ever look into what’s going on in the Christian world, but we don’t want to live in fear that we’ll miss out on something if we aren’t constantly checking the latest revival news.
And then there are the people who run from meeting to meeting trying to “chase revival.” They think that if they go to wherever the latest “outpouring” is going on, they will become part of it and take that outpouring back to their own city. Now if the people at the meetings are really teaching the Word, someone might indeed go back to his city better equipped to flow with the Holy Spirit. However, that is not why revival chasers go all over the place like storm chasers trying to find the next tornado. Usually, they assume that if they go to where an outpouring is, the same “revival anointing” will get on them, and they will become revivalists in their own area. If it were only so easy! If I could really get equipped to flow in “revival” by just going to revival meetings rather than spending a lot of time in study and prayer, I’d gladly take the shortcut and so would most people!
But that’s the problem. There is no shortcut to growing in God. If you really want to flow with God, you have to grow. That takes time and effort on your part. Just flying somewhere to spend a week under a “revival anointing” will never be a substitute for personal growth. God is not instantly going to make a great revivalist out of a baby Christian just because he went to revival meetings.
Most “moves of God” bring flaky people out of the woodwork and you have to deal with them. I attended one set of meetings that really did have an impact on the city, and a woman informed me that God had told her to leave her husband at home and go to where revival was happening. I told her that she would be much better off going home and being a good wife to her husband, but she didn’t want to hear it.
What is the story with such people? Their mistake is that they pursue EXCITEMENT when they should pursue GOD Himself. Many people make that mistake. Serving God IS exciting, but it does not consist of one “blowout” revival experience after another. Even Paul certainly didn’t live hidden in the Holy of Holies all day.
When you get wrapped up in EXCITEMENT rather than the WORD, you will inevitably get involved with things that seem exciting that God is not involved with. People a while back were all excited about stories of an attractive “babe angel” even though the Bible NEVER mentions any female angels. (Christians can watch secular TV and get “touched by” some really kooky ideas.) People at those meetings were bouncing beach balls around during praise and worship thinking that if a ball hit them, the anointing would hit them. Then someone came to our state who supposedly had a “revival angel” who caused revival to break out everywhere he went. No revival broke out in our state when he came. I knew people who got all excited and begged me to go to meetings like those, but I didn’t waste my time. Successful ministries are based on the WORD, not on EXCITEMENT.
If you look at the inevitable slew of prophecies that come forth in some of these “revival meetings,” it’s downright embarrassing to look back 2 or 3 years later and see how many of those prophecies (IF ANY) came to pass. Again, you have people who mistake the EXCITEMENT of the moment for the Holy Spirit, and they miss it accordingly. They prophesy based on excitement rather than based on true Holy Spirit inspiration.
Fourteenth, there is the idea that if we just do the same thing that prior revivalists did, we will get the same results. If Jonathan Edwards had special meetings on “fifth Fridays” of the month, we’ll do it too so that we will have another Great Awakening where we are. I know people who deliberately did “fifth Friday” meetings to copy Edwards. Nothing happened. The meetings were so-so – they weren’t “bad” but on the other hand, they did not produce revival. When Edwards did it, he was doing what God told him to do to the best of his ability. Edwards didn’t have those meetings because some past revivalist had “fifth Friday” meetings. I don’t know of any two “moves” that ever worked the same way. If you’re going to be a copycat, copy what Jesus did and how He acted rather than trying to copy specific men and their specific actions. You have to follow the Holy Spirit for yourself just as revivalists in the past did.
My personal take is that if you would spend the time studying the WORD that you spend studying past revivals and revivalists, you will get much better results. You flow in “revival” when you find out who you really are in Christ and act on that, not when you just pile up information about past moves of God and their leaders.
The same problem occurs with people looking for church growth shortcuts. If Church X did program Y and grew, we assume that we can do Program Y ourselves and get the same results. That leads to disappointment. If someone did something that worked, it was probably what the Holy Spirit told THAT person to do. You see results by following the example of doing what the Holy Spirit tells YOU to do, not by following the exact actions that the Holy Spirit told someone else to do.
Fifteenth, there is the idea that all you need to do is go to a revival meeting in another city, participate in an “impartation service” and then expect to carry that same anointing back to your city and start your own revival. Consider how many tens of thousands of people (if not more) have had hands laid on them for a “revival impartation” in such services and then ask yourself how many have gone back and done anything resembling the revival in question. You have to realize how silly this gets. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could just be a carnal, immature, marginally committed Christian, go to such a meeting, have hands laid on you, and suddenly cause revival in your city? That’s not how God sets people into ministries. There’s a lot more to successful ministry than just having someone lay hands on you. We’d all like it if there were shortcuts to successful ministry, but there really aren’t any. Look at the biblical qualifications for ministry leaders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. People who fail to meet them will not be successful even if you lay hands on them all night believing for an impartation.
I am not denying that there are people who have attended a revival in a certain city and have gone back and started a similar revival in their own city. However, I think it is a dubious proposition that this is due to “getting a transfer of someone else’s anointing.” Why would you WANT someone else’s anointing when you are not called to be a duplicate of that person? Do you honestly know of a case where someone got an “impartation” and became exactly like the imparter? I know people with effective ministries that served under people with spectacular ministries. Some of them flow certain ways like their mentors. But I don’t know of any who are carbon copies of their mentors.
I say this despite having served certain ministers and finding myself ministering in similar ways to them at least in some, but definitely not all, areas. Is this due to impartation? If it is, why do I not have their anointings, but only flow as they did in certain ways?
My mentor did large meetings in Africa, but I have yet to do even ONE meeting in Africa at this writing, though I am not against it for any reason. I have seen deaf ears healed and he specialized in that as well as blind eyes. At this writing, I haven’t had his consistent success with blind eyes. If I had his anointing, I should have exactly the same results he had and I should be doing crusades with huge crowds in Africa as he did. He even bear-hugged me and carried me around my living room believing for an “impartation” for me and laid hands on me believing for an “impartation” many times.
Being associated with him changed my ministry for the better. But I think what changed me instead of “impartations” was just hanging around with someone who would share what he knew about healing crusades well into the night, even until the sun came up. I learned a lot in a very short time. I picked up his I-don’t-care-what-it-is-Jesus-heals-it mindset. I learned how he thought when confronted with serious conditions. I saw how he yielded to the Holy Spirit and had a VERY serious prayer life. I honestly think that what changed me for the better had more to do with noting and following his example in the Holy Spirit than with particular prayers.
I am not against attending revival meetings and I have expended effort to go to such meetings myself. It is certainly instructive to watch the Holy Spirit move through other ministers. You can pick up things that will help your own ministry. The Holy Spirit can quicken things to you in a special way.
I think it is helpful to differentiate an “impartation” from a “temporary transfer of the anointing.” A famous faith preacher would sometimes get tired and lay hands on one of his singers, and the singer would then go out and minister the same way he did. But that did not instantly “impart” a similar ministry to the singer from that moment forward.
Here’s something you might not ever have thought about, and I never thought about it either before I wrote this section. What the disciples did in Jesus’ ministry was not a permanent impartation either, but rather a temporary transfer of His anointing for specific tasks while He was on the earth. At least that is blatantly provable. If the disciples actually “got His anointing by impartation,” Jesus would not have ordered them to stay in Jerusalem until they were permanently endued with power from on high! They could have just ministered with His imparted anointing immediately without waiting to be baptized with the Holy Spirit! What is really amazing is that His anointing was upon them to do signs and wonders before Jesus’ death and resurrection when they were not even born again yet!
In my revival travels, I have been in various “impartation services” but I have yet to copy the ministry of any of the revivalists involved. You can blame that on unbelief on my part if you like, but consider this: Did they have “impartation services” like that in the New Testament? Did Paul ever put on meetings where he said you could get his anointing if he laid hands on you so that you could go start churches as he did somewhere else? The Bible pattern is that people trained under others as opposed to going to a one-off service to “get someone’s anointing.”
If you want to be like someone, sit under that person’s teaching. Luke 6:40 in the New King James Version reads, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” You will become like that person whether he ever lays hands on you! And that really helps if you want to be like a teacher whose body is dead – you can follow that preacher’s teachings even though he can’t possibly lay hands on you for impartation! (And forget the “grave error” of going to his tomb to try to suck the anointing out of it!)
I realize that if you have a spectacular anointing, you will not have trouble attracting a crowd to a meeting where you will “impart” your special anointing. But we are looking for Bible precedent.
It would make you greater than Jesus and the apostles if you could get an “impartation” and be guaranteed to shake your city. Maybe your city is like Nazareth because hardly anyone respects Jesus or anything He does in your city. You aren’t going to have revival there! You aren’t greater than your Master. Some places are just hardened to the gospel, and even JESUS wouldn’t be able to do mighty works there, so you certainly won’t do mighty works in such a place. The solution is not to believe for a phenomenal anointing to reach a hardened city – it’s to leave that city and go somewhere else where people actually WANT Jesus and what He offers. God has not told anyone that he has to stay in the same place butting his head against a brick wall his entire life. There are some places where you will just not have revival no matter who you are, and it’s unrealistic to think that a special “revival anointing” will cause God to move where He is not wanted.
A famous preacher moved to such a “tough” and resistant area, assuring his followers that he would being revival to it. He lasted about six months there before moving on after not seeing any revival.
Having said all that, I do believe that you can visit some places that have been flowing in the Holy Spirit for a long time and be ministered to by the Holy Spirit in a notable way. I went to one location where God was consistently moving mightily on people and suddenly felt very “high” (for lack of a better word to describe it) in the prayer room before the service. Then I fell into a trance for the first time in my life. It was the real thing, not something I worked up or even expected. All I was aware of was Jesus and I didn’t even notice that the room had filled up with people while I was “away” from my natural senses. It was one of the biggest shocks of my life when I realized the room was full and I had no idea when everyone had gone in there. In the service, a strong wind started moving my shirt around where there were no windows or doors anywhere near me. That certainly got my attention. (I’ve heard similar stories of “mighty rushing wind” manifestations of the Spirit.) So I am OK with the idea that a certain place can become a modern-day “pool of Bethesda” where unusual manifestations are commonplace. But that is not the same thing as getting an impartation. That spectacular experience seemed to hang on me for days afterward. But if something is an impartation in the strict sense, it should be something that stays with you permanently. While the experience was unforgettable, I don’t know that I can trace a permanent and specific “increase in the anointing” to it, though it opened my eyes further to what’s possible when the Holy Spirit moves and I was better for it.
The main problem is YOU if you have the idea that you must get a special revival anointing to do the works of Jesus. You can do them right now! You don’t have to wait for anything. You have the Holy Spirit working through you. Given that He is almighty, what else must God “impart” to you to improve on what the all-powerful Holy Spirit can do through you? Do you need some extra “gift” beside the One who is the Giver of all giftings in the first place? Please at least consider that before sending me any “Christian hate mail” over this!
I cover this topic in even more detail under the question Are Impartations and Impartation Services Biblical?.
Sixteenth, there is the idea that Satanists have set up covert altars in the woods where they perform sacrifices to open portals that let darkness spew all over the area, and we need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us find these altars and desecrate them by having communion on them to close the evil portals that are influencing the area for Satan, at which point revival will flow unhindered. I am not questioning the existence of Satanists or Satanic altars. But there is absolutely no Bible precedent to go on a hunt for such altars or desecrate them with communion! Jesus and His disciples never did it and there are no New Testament instructions to do anything remotely like that. I’ve heard the “exciting” stories of people “led by the Spirit” to find and desecrate such altars, but I seriously question which kind of spirit is getting people involved with unbiblical pursuits like that. I honestly think Satan himself is behind the whole idea for reasons that will become obvious below.
The apostles had revival in different cities without ever destroying Satanic altars. We know there were practitioners of evil arts around, because in one case there were enough witchcraft books in use in the city to be worth 50,000 silver pieces (Acts 19:19)! But the apostles didn’t have to do anything in particular about it. Remember that Numbers 23:23 shows that witchcraft is powerless against God’s people anyway! What DID they do? They preached the gospel, did miracles, and so many believed – and once they believed, they didn’t serve the devil anymore, so they certainly stopped building or using witch altars. This was a permanent fix instead of a temporary one.
Nothing in the Bible even hints that a defeated enemy can use spiritual power to stop revival in the first place. You can just go ahead and have it, altars or no altars.
Satan doesn’t need to “open portals” anyway to get influence on the earth from afar. He is already on the earth, so he can try to influence the earth without having to squeeze through any portals.
If you DO go and somehow ruin these altars, if there are still Satanists around, they will just build new ones, and you could chase your tail your entire life trying to find and “desecrate” the new ones, at which point they will just build more new ones, and so on.
Satan has perfectly good reasons for getting you to go after the altars. He operates with the idea that “If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em.” Since he can’t stop Christians, he tries to at least sidetrack them into unproductive pursuits that won’t hurt his kingdom while making people think they’re doing all kinds of damage to it. Unsuspecting Christians can get all excited without checking their Bibles and then mistake activity for progress. Satan also is full of pride, so he really likes it when Christians focus and report on what he is doing instead of on what God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are doing.
But his biggest reason is to get Christians to NOT do what the apostles did – spread the gospel! That could actually get the Satanists and others set free. He wants to get Christians to waste time that they could be using to reach and deliver lost people!
Philip went to Samaria and never did any of the things listed above, yet he had revival that caused great joy in that city. What He did was no secret – God put it in His Word so that we can do it too. It’s so simple that it’s right under our noses, but so many people miss it looking for some “deep” revival “secret.” Philip preached Christ! That’s all. (Acts 8:5-8). If we preach Christ and expect God to confirm His Word (Mark 16:20), we should expect the same results.
In conclusion, here is the irony involved in wrong revival mindsets. If you think and act based on the idea that a move of God will come in the future, it will always be in the future to you. That very mindset is what is KEEPING it in the future! If you think and act based on the idea that God wants to move NOW, you will see God move NOW. The truth is that the Kingdom of God Is here NOW. We need to believe that and present that to other people instead of the idea that the kingdom will arrive someday and we have to wait for God to feel like pouring out revival. Let’s preach as Jesus did instead of how man often preaches today, and we will see the results Jesus saw instead of the lack of results that man usually sees today. The kingdom is here. NOW!