WHY REVIVALS FADE
26/03/24 08:01
There are places that enjoy a visitation of the Holy Spirit. And then it dries up. This has been a feature of many Holy Spirit revivals that are accompanied by astounding miracles. You can see the same in churches. There is a flurry of interest and then what was the Revival, fades out.
WHEN THE SPIRIT COMES
In the 1980s I read a book by Colin Urquhart entitled, ‘When The Spirit comes.’ In it he gives an account of the gifts and discusses why revivals fade. This has been a mystery for many Pentecostals and revivalists – a fact that has pushed them to make religion out of the need for repeated anointings and infillings.
But the latter are not the basis of our life in God.
The atonement/incarnation is this Soil and the eucharist and the living of it is the substance of The Presence. Our ever-present union with God in Christ is the foundation of all Holy Living and wholeness of persons.
ABC FIRST
Reinhardt Bonnke acknowledges this in his autobiography, Living in the Fire. Jesus has used him to win thousands to Christ, accompanied by hundreds of healing miracles. But Bonnke assures us that His crusades always commence with the establishment of the ABC of the Gospel, which is that we enter real life and eternal life on account of our reconciliation with God in Jesus Christ.
THE REASON
My reading of the Theology of the Christian Church has convinced me that Revivals founded on miracles and signs eventually fade because these are not the basis of the Kingdom of God. The basis is our already achieved union with God in Jesus Christ.
We are made one with God by Jesus’ atonement and we express the life of God by His incarnation in our being. It’s simple really. Where we get into trouble is when we dilute this simplicity with complications of our own – by focussing on elements that are not Christ or by undoing the cross by including some version of self-effort, aka legalism/moralism in order to ‘earn God’.
NON-GOSPELS BREED DULL BELIEVERS
Nothing quenches our life in Christ as much as non-gospel proffered in His name. We are talking any gospel that replaces grace with self-effort and legalism. New Creation Life cannot take root in such an aberration because such a culture is the knowledge of good and evil – from which we are delivered in Christ – posing as the gospel of christ which it is not. The eucharist lived is the foundation of a holy/wholesome life in God. The eucharist means that Adam is undone and that we and Christ are one. All gospels that fudge the atonement and introduce some denial of grace are false gospels. The Kingdom Jesus began will not take root in them.
REPENT OF NON-GOSPELS
Reinhardt Bonnke tells this story about a Jehovah’s Witness who came to Jesus Christ. Bonnke had presented the gospel to a man who had an ‘answer for everything’ not unlike the mindset of those who live from an askew gospel or a semi-Christian cult.
“I am ready to accept Jesus Christ as my Saviour,” he said. Amazement, almost disbelief, leapt up in my heart. This was an incredible moment. Suddenly, this young man who had come to argue had no arguments.
BREAL WITH DELUSION
“In that moment the Holy Spirit whispered inside of me, telling me what to do. I sensed in my inner conversation with the Lord that this man must not just make a decision for Christ; he must make a clean break with the Jehovah’s Witnesses at the same time. This was a source of bondage that still remained for him.
“Let’s get into my car,” I said.
“He did. When we were inside, I said to him, “We will drive to your house and burn all your Jehovah’s Witnesses books. Are you ready to do that? Immediately, he had an inner struggle. So much of his knowledge was bound up in those books. They had given him pride and a place in the world. They had made him feel superior. I thought that if I did not place a clear choice before him, he would go into a time of struggle that would last for a long time before he would finally be free. Years of unfruitfulness could follow.
CHOOSE LIFE
“Choose Jesus or Jehovah’s Witnesses,” I said. “This is the choice you make. Not two ways, just one.”
There is but one way. Not many. One Gospel, not several. One Christ, not a law-subordinated christ. One union with God in Jesus. Not many christ’s of our own invention. Any gospel other than the Gospel Paul preached is a false gospel that brings a curse. A curse because our life in the Spirit of Christ cannot take root in it and we remain without spirit and life. Outpourings of the Holy Spirit dry up when they have no root. Any Gospel that is not the Gospel of Jesus, Paul and John is not this Gospel of the Kingdom.
