Pastor Bruce's June 2012 Newsletter Messsage

Dear Friends,

We have spent a lot of time in the last few years talking about and praying for REVIVAL!

Pastor Jonathan and I along with some other pastor friends of ours that are like minded meet once a month to pray for revival. We have been having bi-monthly unity services at the Brookville Church of God to cry out to God for revival.

The Scripture says, (Psa 85:6 NIV) Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?

That word REVIVE in the Hebrew means to keep (leave, make) alive, give (promise) life,suffer to) live, nourish up,preserve (alive), quicken, recover, repair, restore (to life), revive, save (alive, life, lives), be whole.

God will keep us, He will preserve us, He will quicken us, He will repair us, and He will restore us! No doubt that the Psalmist was trusting in this promise from God and seeing the need that we need God to move in our lives all the time. Maybe we should be in a constant state of seeking to be revived. Maybe the same principle is true for our own restoration that is with praying, we are commanded to “pray without ceasing.” Should we be trusting God to be constantly revived?

Notice also that only God can revive us. There is no pill to take to be revived; there is not a person that can revive us, although there are those who certainly can encourage us. There is only One who can revive and that is God through the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. 

I do believe there are some conditions that need to be met in our lives in order for us to experience revival. The Bible says, (Isa 57:15 NIV) For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Two conditions this verse talks about is to be contrite and lowly. These words both have to do with attitude toward ourselves and it would probably fall under the category of humility. In fact the word humble is defined in the dictionary as; recognizing our shortcomings, modest, to lower in condition or rank. The Scripture says that  (Phil 2:5-8 NIV) Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: {6} Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, {7} but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. {8} And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!

So my questions are, “Do we have the right attitude to be revived?  Do we have the humility to be revived? Are we able and capable of being revived?” Those are questions we each have to ask ourselves based on our attitudes.

The next step in revival is when it flows through us individually to the corporate body, the church. Certainly one criteria for revival on a congregational level would be a healthy church situation.

We’ve spent a lot of time in the most recent years talking about Church Health. I’ve heard the questions, what does a healthy church look like, and how does a church get healthy? I think the implication or the suggestion is that there are not a lot of congregations that are healthy. Based also on statistics that say that 90% of congregations are either plateaued or declining in attendance. In other words, generally speaking, the church today in our country is not growing and that translates into us not winning the lost to the Kingdom of God. In other words, we are not seeing souls saved. 

We obviously try to figure out the cause and a solution to the cause. We find that people in congregations, at least in the Church of God, do not have to listen to or take advice from anyone who comes into a congregation to intervene, give advice, and help the congregation to become healthy. 

Unhealthy churches are no respecter of size, there are large congregations that are unhealthy and there are small congregations that are unhealthy and everywhere in between.

Do I dare ask that in some cases an unhealthy pastor could also be a part of the cause for an unhealthy or declining congregation?

A. W. Tozer in his book, “The Knowledge of the Holy” says, "The history of mankind will probably show that no people have ever risen above its religion, and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God."

The question is, “Just where is God in our discussion of the “Healthy Church?” We all know the right things to say, we can all talk the talk, but at times, our actions speak louder than our words. Is our idea of God BIG ENOUGH? In other words, do we recognize HOW BIG GOD IS? We need a big God to be present and we have God’s presence today through the Holy Spirit. Thus praying for and expecting that a big God could deliver a HOLY GHOST REVIVAL!

Leonard Ravenhill in his book “Why Revival Tarries” says, “At this grim hour, the world sleeps in the darkness, and the Church sleeps in the light, so Christ is wounded in the house of His friends. The limping Church militant is mockingly called the Church impotent. Yearly we use mountains of paper and rivers of ink reprinting dead man’s brains, while the living Holy Ghost is seeking for men to trample underfoot their own leaning, deflate their inflated ego, and confess that with all their seeing they are blind. Such men, at the price of brokenness and strong crying and tears, seek that they may be anointed with divine eye salve, bought at the price of honest acknowledgement of poverty of soul.  Years ago a minister put this sign outside of his church, ‘“This church will have either a revival or a funeral!”’

I feel like, for too long, as leaders in the church, we just treat the symptoms of our lack of revival but never solve the problems!

Congregations are declining as a result of the last 2-3 decades of focus that has been all wrong! In fact, I will say with authority, because of the results we are experiencing in our day, the focus has been wrong! In many cases “cutting edge” hasn’t worked! Today Biblical illiteracy is at an all-time high. We are told that“only 3% of churches in America have a planned method of instructing their members to learn the Bible in its entirety. While studying the Bible shouldn’t be limited to a church setting, it’s imperative that churches take the lead in these types of endeavors.”

When only three of 100 churches even attempt to provide a way for their members to understand Genesis to Revelation, biblical illiteracy is likely to occur. And biblical illiteracy means that our churches may not be obedient to the calls of Scripture because they don’t know what the Bible says.

We have been taught by Church Growth Gurus that there are essentials and non-essentials with regard to Scripture. (2 Tim 3:16-17 NIV) All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, {17} so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Jim Cymbala, in his study “When God’s Spirit Moves” says, “Do we need more translations of the Bible? Do we need more praise-and-worship choruses? Do we need better sound systems in our churches? Better choir risers? Better lighting? Do we need to serve more coffee before the service? What we really need is something from Heaven.”

In fact, his definition of revival is: “When people get so tired of what is, and cry out to God. Humble ourselves, submit to God, and confess to God.”

There hasn’t been a national revival in the U.S.A. for over 100 years.

Here is what I believe are the elements that will bring REVIVAL that are probably obvious:

1. Holy Spirit

2. Prayer (Corporate and individual)

3. Theology

(Psa 85:6 NIV)  Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?

LET US ALL HUNGER AND THIRST FOR REVIVAL!