ARE YOU IN BITTERNESS OF SOUL?

Though I have been put on the shelf by God for a while, my heart still beats hard and robustly to the drum of the Holy Spirit calling his church to repentance, to an act of renewal and rebirth.  The article below written by the wonderful David Wilkerson, who is no longer amongst us but whose spirit lives on, has touched me deeply and filled me with hope.  I hope it does that for you too.

GOD’s POWERFUL ARMY -by David Wilkerson.

Something very powerful and awesome is going on in the world today —something beyond human comprehension—something that will affect the whole world in these last days.

God is preparing a small but powerful army of Christians, the most dedicated army on the face of the earth. The Lord will come forth to command them to do exploits; He is going to close out the ages with a pure, devoted, fearless remnant.

All my life I have heard stories about our godly forefathers who hated sin. These men and women knew God’s voice and spent hours, even days, in fasting and prayer. They prayed unceasingly and had the power and ability to successfully stand up against immorality in their day.

These forefathers have long since passed on. But God is in the process of raising up another army and this time His warriors will not be made up only of elderly, gray-haired fathers and mothers of Zion. This new army will be composed of both new and seasoned believers, both young and old, ordinary Christians who lay hold of God! A whole new realm of ministry is about to come forth!

The denominational church system appears to be in the throes of death. It has almost no influence in the secular world, no mighty power in Christ. Some accuse me of being “hard” on pastors. But I am in touch with many godly pastors who grieve as I do over the backsliding in the ministry today. There is a holy remnant of godly pastors in the land, and I thank God for every one of them. Yet, it is still a fact that more and more ministers are racing down the road of compromise.

The Bible warns that we are not to fret! God has a plan and it is being manifested. It is put forth plainly in Scripture, mostly in the first four chapters of First Samuel.

The prophet Samuel is a type of God’s last-days remnant. The Lord chose him amid the worst of times and hid him away in training until it was time to bring forth His new thing. God told Samuel, “Behold, I will do something in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle” (1 Samuel 3:11). What would so amaze and startle all who heard it? It was the judgment of God on the backslidden religious system and the raising up, training and anointing of a new, holy remnant!

What God did in Samuel’s day, He does in every generation. Indeed, in every generation there has been a remnant, a praying people after His own heart.

BIRTH OF the LAST-DAYS REMNANT

The prophet Samuel is a type of the last-days holy remnant—a prepared body of believers that rises out of the ruins of the old, decadent church.

Hannah, Samuel’s mother, birthed her son through bitter tears and much prayer. “And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish” (1 Samuel 1:10).

Try to imagine the scene: Hannah was at the temple every day, on her knees before the altar, crushed and broken because she was childless. As she wept, her adversary—her husband’s other wife— made fun of her. “And her rival also provoked her severely, to make her miserable, because the Lord had closed her womb” (1 Samuel 1:6).

There are three important things I want to point out from this passage:

    * First, the remnant that Samuel represents is born in grief and intercession.     * Second, those who pray and grieve after God’s heart will be provoked by adversaries.     * And third, God’s remnant is always going to be misunderstood!

Note what happened to Hannah as she prayed: “And it happened, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, ‘How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you!’” (1 Samuel 1:12-14). Eli and his sons represent the dying, corrupt church that has forsaken the Lord’s way. Eli was so out of touch—so dead in his spirit—he thought Hannah was drunk!

When Hannah was praying, she was filled with grief, burdened for the birth of a son. All she could do was move her lips because of her groaning in the Spirit. She prayed, “If You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and . . . will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life” (1 Samuel 1:11).

Here are two distinguishing marks of God’s holy remnant:

    * They pray like Hannah. Their burden is deep and their heart is stirred because of the wickedness in God’s house.     * Like Hannah, they give themselves to prayer every day of their lives.

God wants to make you like that. He wants you to be able to touch Him and hear from Him. He wants to give you a ministry to others who will come to you with their burdens and trials. And as you pray for them, His Word will come forth!

I AM TURNING INTO SCROOGE AND I LOVE IT!!! SOOOOOOOOO LIBERATING!

This year it so happens that we do not have a commitment to visit either my family or my husband’s family for Christmas, and so after fighting off many deeply-rooted prejudices and pre-conceptions, and afer much personal wrestling with unfounded fears and superstition, we have decided to do the unthinkable, the unforgivable, the irreverent: we are going away on holiday to sunnier climates during the Christmas season.

I have had to face my own fears and superstitions as I said just now, and I also had to fight my children’s misconceptions that one cannot possibly spend Christmas where there are no cold temperatures and snow.  No sir, that is not what Christmas is supposed to be.  Christmas and having fun do not marry together.  There has to be family confrontation, arguments, jealousy, illness, misery, obscene expenditure, over-eating, glitter and glamour, wastage and utter disregard for the true Christian Spirit by the mere fact that all good things end as we put our tree away til the next Christmas.

I must admit that up til not that long ago, that was my frame of mind with regards to going away on holiday at Christmas time. More fool me!

We are practically away for the whole Christmas period and so it makes sense to us to not even get the Christmas decorations out.  It is hassle, and more work to have to catch up with on our return, so I am doing the sensible thing and keeping the whole fanfare in our loft for one more year.  I feel ten years younger already just by writing that.

What is the meaning of it all?  What is the point of all the fluff and outer layers of apparent warmth and endearment we coat our Christmases with?  Who are we fooling?  What is at the core of it all?  I have been asking myself this a lot in these last few days. I can’t stand hypocrisy, shallowness and pretence.  The worst culprits are us: Christians.  The excess, abundance, gluttony, over-spending, luxury, total disregard for the needs of those who have nothing, all these terrible things which become even more visible and easy to observe in Christians at Christmas time than at any other time of the year.  We preach one thing, we live out another.  And then when it is all over, all the good intentions, the compassion, the mercy, the grace, the love, it all goes out of the window, just as easy as all the decorations were put up and taken down again.

And my question is:  What is Christmas? No, seriously, what is it? If you are a Christian reading this as I am, wouldn’t you agree that each and every day we spend on this earth having accepted Jesus Christ into our life should be thought of as Christmas? Shouldn’t all our good qualities, virtues, good intentions and resolutions be a daily practice each single day we live on this earth? Isn’t each single day the day that the Lord has made?  Do we not live with the same purpose each day of the year? Shouldn’t we?  Why do all our Christian beliefs and convictions melt down with the snow, get put away in a box with our decorations until the next Christmas season?  What is that all about?

As a Christian, I feel the absolute need to be stripped down bare, bare to the core of what it is that it means for me to follow Christ every single day of my life.  Can you imagine what kind of place this world would be if we transplanted the way our heart and spirit are like at Christmas to every single other day of the year? Can you imagine the kind of witness that the Christian world would present to those who do not believe? I want to experience this Christmas without all the layers of pretence and adornment we embellish it with.  I want to get to the nitty-gritty of how to live each day of my life as if it was Christ-mas, because it is.

Oh my gosh!  It is true what my daughter said to me just the other day: I am turning into Scrooge……AND I LOVE IT.  BRING IT ON JESUS!  SHAKE IT ALL OFF, PEEL ALL THE LAYERS AND UNNECESSARY BAGGAGE THAT IS STOPPING ME FROM FULFILLING MY CHRISTIAN CALLING TO BE THE LIGHT AND THE SALT  E-V-E-R-Y  S-I-N-G-L-E  D-A-Y  O-F  M-Y  L-I-F-E

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You may have recently read a post I wrote about our friend Burkhard Varnholt and the charity he founded years ago called Kids of Africa (http://www.kids-of-africa.com/you-can-help/house-renovation-campaign/). Well, due to the rain season and to termites, the beautiful houses built in the Kids of Africa village have been badly damaged and need repairing if they are going to be habitable.  And so these repairs can only take place if people donate money.  Yes, money does not solve all problems and it most certainly does not replace love, but in this situation we can most certainly show love to these orphan children by helping rebuild these wonderful houses they can now call their home.  The cost of renovating one house which is inhabited by 10 people is US$2,000.  My husband and I have worked extremely hard this year and God has honoured and blessed our commitment to the resources and skills he has equipped us with.  None of it would make much sense to us unless we shared it with those who have nothing, so why don’t you join us in extending the Christmas spirit to the rest of the year by making a commitment to living this out every single day?  Why not start by making a difference today?

I won’t wish you a merry Christmas but my wish for you is instead that you live each day as it is Christmas, because it is. The world will be a much better place for it and the light of Jesus will shine all the brighter for it in the darkest of places.

JUST LIKE THE FORMIDABLE SPECIMEN OF THE EAGLE WE TOOK A PICTURE OF LAST SUMMER (SEE THE HEADER OF THIS BLOG), I HOPE TO KEEP MY EYES FIXED ON THE ONE THING THAT TRULY MATTERS.

God bless you!

West Coast Disaster. Will we listen?

You may recall a while ago I published a post called “Will California shake beyond recognition?” (http://anewcreation33.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/will-california-shake-again/)

This morning reading through some of the websites on my blogroll I discovered a prophetic word recently given by Rick Joyner which you can find on the link below.  I think it is fair to say there are far too many of us getting a burden, dreams and visions about the shaking that is coming to California for the world to ignore it.  Please pray for that part of the United States and for repentance to come to that land before it is too late, pray for God’s mercy and for a great harvest to be reaped as God’s will come to pass.

Thank you and God bless you.

Here is the link.  Please take the time to reflect on this, to pray about it and to seek God. The majority of us discard these kinds of warnings, because we know from a scientific point of view and from history that indeed the West Coast of America is one of the most prone areas in the world to suffer earthquakes, so what’s new, right? That granted, I still feel God would not burden so many of us with warnings about this, unless He intended to bring His people to repentance, and for none to perish before it is too late.

Our Heavenly Father is a Compassionate, Fair and Merciful God, but ultimately He is also Just, Holy, All-knowing, Omnipotent and Sovereign.

http://www.morningstarministries.org/Articles/1000116498/MorningStar_Ministries/Media/Word_for_the/2011/West_Coast_Disaster.aspx#.TthTu-ChkHk.facebook

Is it time to close our churches? For the most part, I’d say so!

Is It Time To Close Our Churches?

by Bill Muehlenberg (http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/)

OK, now that I have got your attention, let me explain. I was again having a great conversation with a godly brother about the state of the church and related matters. I mentioned the sad state of so much of Australian – and Western – Christianity, and what might be done about it.

We were talking about how basically all churches and denominations have some amount of the traditions of men. Most would claim to be merely biblical, but perhaps none are entirely so. We all have various traditions we tack on to our faith, thinking everything we do is all gospel truth.

I mentioned, as an example, how in so many of the churches it seems almost mandatory to have worship conducted in what can only be described as a disco: black walls, strobe lights, smoke machines, etc. There is not one bit of biblical warrant for any of this, but so many churches seem to think that without all this they would somehow be quite deficient.

I have written before about such matters: www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/08/31/christian-atheism/

And here: www.billmuehlenberg.com/2009/11/29/david%E2%80%99s-mighty-men-godly-discontentment/

My brother fully agreed with me, but said that they would argue they need such things to draw in the young people or make it relevant. To which I replied, “What’s wrong with the Holy Spirit? Is he not sufficient to draw in both young and old?” The Holy Ghost was all the early church had. They had no gimmicks, no techniques, no marketing strategies, no advertising, and so on.

But they did have a growing and thriving church. They did not need or want manmade mechanisms to grow a church. They knew God alone would suffice. My friend, again agreeing, and again playing devil’s advocate, asked how we will keep people, especially our youth, coming to church. They need some sort of draw card.

I said we don’t really need entertainment and celebrities to draw people. If that was all we needed, then we should go the whole hog and have free pizzas, door prizes, and other appealing things 24/7. That would certainly bring in the crowds.

The trouble is, if the only way we can get people into our churches is through gimmicks, entertainment and worldly lures, then that will be what they come to expect for their entire Christian life. If their Christian journey is not fun, entertaining, feel-good and me-centred, they will go elsewhere for better and cheaper thrills.

We cannot start  believers off on the wrong foot and then expect they will continue on the right foot. A false initiation to the Christian faith will always disappoint in the end. Such shallow gospel gimmickry can only result in shallow Christians.

The entertainment and celebrity culture (by which I mean not just the songs but the sermons and the whole feel-good experience), needs to be radically rethought. Indeed, I would suggest that we can probably dispense with most of it, and start asking ourselves how God in fact builds a church. One thought which has exercised my spirit for some time now I will throw out here.

If it results in even more believers thinking I am a bit of a strange duck, well, that may be the price I have to pay. I try not to worry too much about what people think, but I do endeavour to take seriously what God thinks. (Of course I am fully aware that God speaks through his people. So I do actually take all criticisms on board, and try to treat them like a fish dinner: take the meat while leaving the bones behind.)

So let me offer a real hardcore suggestion here. My recommendation is this: it may well be the best thing in many cases to simply shut our church doors and post a big sign on each entry with words something like this:

“Dear friends, sorry but our church is now closed for repairs. It will be closed for perhaps a few days, perhaps a few weeks, and maybe even longer, until a full and thorough renovation has taken place. These doors will remain shut for as long as it takes. We will notify you when the doors will reopen. In fact, there will be no need to notify you, because it will be apparent to everyone when the renewal work is completed. Thank you for your patience.”

Am I being facetious here? Not really – at least not too much. I do believe that sometimes the very best thing we could do for some of our churches is shut them down for a spell. When the church is shut down, God’s people and their leaders can then spend as much time on their faces before God as possible, beginning with some serious repentance.

The list of things to repent of would be extensive. We could repent of our worldliness, our compromise, our disobedience, our laziness, our lukewarmness, our apathy, our carnality, our waywardness, our sloth, our cowardice, our sinfulness, and our fleshliness. And that’s just for starters.

We could repent of relying on man-made techniques, pagan gimmicks, carnal entertainment, worldly celebrity status, and whoring after money, fame and fortune. Above all we could repent of thinking that the Holy Spirit is somehow just an optional extra, and that having lots of entertainment and things to do will somehow compensate for his absence.

We must take very seriously the words of Christ: “These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:8). Until our hearts are broken and malleable and contrite and soft, we will never be able to do much good for God. That is the clear teaching of Scripture:

“A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)

“For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite’.” (Isaiah 57:15)

“These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2)

And we should stay on our faces before God in an attitude of contrition, repentance and humility for as long as it takes. When, by God’s grace, the garbage in our churches and in our lives is weeded out, and we are at a place of brokenness before him, where we are willing to say, “Lord, whatever it takes,” and God then gloriously and wonderfully meets us and renews us and fills us afresh, then we can reopen the doors.

In other words, until the Lord meets us with a new, deep and serious work of God, breaking forth into a transforming revival, we should maybe take a break from all our busyness. When God-breathed revival breaks forth, we will not need to waste our time on entertainment and fleshly gimmicks and cheap tricks to keep the crowds amused.

We will be too busy falling before the holy and living God. We will have to think about how to deal with the overflowing crowds. That will be a much nicer problem to have. Remember, Jesus never left as his parting commandment, “Go into all the world and make megachurches, draw big crowds, and entertain the masses”.

He said “Go into all the world and make disciples.” That is an altogether different matter. And the only real way that can be done is by the power of the Spirit. Instead of so much relying on every method under the sun, we need to more fully embrace the only true means Christ has prescribed for us: the Holy Spirit.

As usual, A.W. Tozer had it exactly right: “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

Postscript

OK, let me offer a much-needed afterword for all those ready to tar and feather me and run me out of town. Are there a lot of great churches, Christians, and church leaders doing great things? You bet. Is God ever so gracious and merciful to us that he shows up week after week even though we have so much carnality and fleshliness in our gatherings? Yep.

It is the overwhelming grace of God that he so often uses us frail, weak and often selfish servants. My point is simply that instead of relying on so many gimmicks and techniques, maybe we just need to go back to basics and invite God back and ask him how he would like things to be done.

And my proposal is not all that radical. Pastors will often take a sabbatical; church leaders will often do a weekend retreat; and lay people will often go to a week-long church camp for spiritual renewal and refocusing. So my suggestion is simply a bit more of the same.

I thank God for all the faithful Christians, faithful churches, and faithful leaders who are sold out to Jesus and are intent on glorifying him. May their tents increase and may there be many more of them.

The Church as a Boy’s Club by Bill Muehlenberg – Well worth a read!!

The Church as Boy’s Club     

by Bill Muehlenberg (http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/)

Thomas Sowell once said that “The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.” And I might add, sadly, some churches are for churches, and some church leaders are for church leaders – not necessarily the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We kid ourselves if we think some believers and Christian leaders are in the church for only pure spiritual motives. There are all sorts of reasons why some people covet leadership positions in churches. The same desire for fame, fortune, glory, power, self-aggrandisement and empire building we find in the world can also readily be found in our churches.

Many church leaders exist simply to protect their own turf, their own livelihood, and their own ego. They especially thrive on the praises and adulation of men. Indeed, while the Bible clearly warns about men pleasers, they are by no means absent in much of the church today.

Sure, one can see why believers can so easily fall into such traps. No one wants to be unpopular, disliked, unloved, and not respected. That is a very human characteristic. But Christians are not supposed to be simply catering to human desires and whims.

We are to be seeking to please God above all else. Indeed, I would rather be accepted by God and spurned by men than be loved by men and spurned by God. At the end of the day the only thing that really matters is what God thinks of us, not what man thinks of us.

I am reminded of a story concerning Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. A clergyman had assured him that God was on the North’s side of the conflict. Lincoln replied to him, “I know that the Lord is always on the side of right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”

Quite so. I don’t want to be simply ‘right’. I don’t want to be popular. I don’t want to be successful. I only want to be pleasing in all things to God. I want to one day hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And if that means falling out of favour with man, then so be it.

That is a very small price indeed to pay to be pleasing to God. Yet we seem to find so few leaders today who put God’s pleasure above everything else. They seem more intent on heaping upon themselves the praises of men. They want to be surrounded by admirers, fans, and groupies. They bask in the limelight of human praise, but seem less concerned about heavenly approbation.

And too often such folks find great comfort in the company of other like-minded folks. Thus too often the church becomes a closed shop, a little men’s club, a mutual pat-yourself-on-the back club, where they simply become yes men to one another. It becomes just like any other closed club where any outside assessments, questions or criticisms are verboten, and they remain above any searching evaluation.

They exist simply to exist. It is a self-perpetuating kingdom where existence is paramount. Just as so many politicians will put staying in power above all else, so too many church leaders have ensconced positions of power, where they feed on the praises of men and the adoration of the crowds.

I have seen this first hand too often, and it is not a pretty sight. These folks would rather bask in the applause of men than spend time in the shadow of the almighty. They would rather parade around the world and receive the praises of men than spend time on their faces before the crucified Lord.

They do not believe in the offense of the gospel, or recognise a rejected saviour. They only know glory, power, fame and fortune. Their Christ is only a triumphant conquering king, not a messiah crowned with a headpiece of thorns. Because of this gross imbalance, their Jesus is not the Christ of Scripture, but the stuff of fiction.

And so many believers are so very happy to hop on board such a triumphant and prosperous faith. At such venues the gospel message is usually mangled beyond comprehension. Banished forever are words and concepts like sin, mortification, self-denial, holiness, repentance, sacrifice, and the wrath of God.

Instead, the words are always so warm and fuzzy and reassuring and accepting. It is all about you, and how you can feel better about yourself, and how you can prosper and lose weight and succeed in your business and be wealthy and free of illness, trouble, trials, or suffering.

It is a man-centred gospel preached by man-centred preachers. And for all that, there is only applause and cheers. The offence of the cross has been well and truly disposed of. Jesus is the buddy of mankind, not the righteous judge of the universe whose eyes flash with fire and whose sword drips with blood.

This domesticated Jesus is to everyone’s liking. The masses love him and the false prophets love to proclaim him. His message is so easy and so me-centred. Who wouldn’t want to follow such a figure? But as Leonard Ravenhill rightly warned, “If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.”

Indeed, Joseph Sobran was quite incisive when he said this several decades ago: “The church is hated more for her virtues than for her weaknesses. Nobody hates Zeus or Thor or the Buddha, because nobody feels deeply rebuked by their standard of morality. We can look back on them benignly, because they are remote from us and pose no threat to our self respect. Christ is different. He is not out-of-date because he was never up-to-date. He was immediately loved and hated by his contemporaries, most of whom rejected him because his teachings were too hard. As G.K. Chesterton said, his morality was poorly adapted to his time: That is why he was crucified. Anyone who teaches his morality today can expect to be attacked too.”

William Booth said this over 100 years ago, and it is spot on: “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

This perfectly describes the modern day church. And I am not just talking about the obvious liberal mainstream denominations, but about so many of our supposedly Bible-believing evangelical and charismatic churches today. This describes to a T the situation in so many of our churches.

As is so often the case, A.W. Tozer hit the nail on the head when he said, “The desire to please may be commendable enough under certain circumstances, but when pleasing men means displeasing God it is an unqualified evil and should have no place in the Christian’s heart. To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.”

Let me offer you one more quote which is one of my very real favourites: “Controversy for the sake of controversy is a sin: controversy for the sake of truth is a Divine command” (Dr Walter Martin). I for one absolutely hate controversy and conflict. I would much rather sit in a corner and read books all day.

So why in the world I do what I do is a good question. But there is only one right answer: it is because my saviour did not just sit in a corner and read books, but gave up everything so that I might be made right with him. How can I do any less in return?

If standing with him against the gates of hell and the hatred of men toward us is part of the cost, then so be it. I am not in the least bit interested in living a life of ease and comfort. Sure, I can get that and more if I simply go with the crowd and seek to please men. But if I do this, I am crucifying my Lord afresh.

We have sold out the gospel to please men and be acceptable. This is the great scandal of the modern-day church. I for one do not want to be part of this scandalous situation. I want to be with the Lamb who was slain, who now deserves all praise and honour and glory. Forget the lousy praise and honour of men.  Who needs it? It is time to seek His praise, and His alone.