Posts Tagged ‘move of God’
Joseph Prince, false-grace and two key threats to revival
Listen to the final two threats to revival in my teaching series, Ten Threats to Revival. There’s a false-grace message that’s promoted by people like Joseph Prince that is threatening a move of God.
First, MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Our gift to you? A completed series on revival that you can listen to and share with your friends right now! Listen to this teaching here: http://media.johnburton.net/6014999
The final two threats to revival that I address are:
- Seeking an enhanced life
- The lack of an immediate response
I’ll post the notes below so you can follow along, but I also wanted to share a couple portions from my book Covens in the Church.
Someone asked me about the call for an immediate response. What if we don’t feel that God is calling us to respond? Here’s my reply:
That’s a great question!
Here’s my response that includes what I wrote in my book that addresses this directly:
Most of the time, our response can’t be attached to our feelings. Basically, we’ll have to move contrary to feeling quite a bit.
We see in the Gideon story that God did release those who were feeling afraid… but, then, they disqualified themselves from participating in the mission.
The key story is Joshua. Under Moses, people didn’t respond to their authority rightly, so they didn’t enter the Promised Land and most of them died in the desert.
Under Joshua, there was precision and immediate response. Nobody stayed back. The call was troublesome and inconvenient, yet everybody was immediately responsive.
The most important first step is to answer the question of whether you are under the person’s authority or not. If someone regionally makes a call and I am legitimately not under their authority, then I can go to prayer and respond how God leads.
But, if I am under their authority, there’s no prayer necessary. I simply respond.
Here’s two sections from my book that deal directly with this:
As the leader of Revolution House of Prayer I have people who God has appointed as my authority. We call them overseers and they
are leaders of ministries and people with a mature walk with the Lord. Like the centurion, I am a man under authority.
Let’s say, for example, I, along with the leadership of Revolution, decide to hold a conference. We go through the tedious process of
securing guest speakers and figuring out how to administrate the event.
We spend thousands of dollars promoting the conference on TV, radio and in print. I am a key part of the process as well as the actual event.
I’ll be teaching in several of the workshops and facilitating the week of activities. A week before the conference I receive a phone call from
one of my overseers. He tells me he needs me to fly to Alabama to help a church work through a transition from one pastor to another. Their previous pastor just repented of indiscretion and resigned suddenly.
The problem? It’s during the same week as my conference. I would have a dilemma. Honestly, I don’t want to go to Alabama. In addition to the upcoming conference I have a wedding to officiate among other important tasks. My integrity and reputation, along with my own personal comfort would be at stake. What’s the correct approach to take?
- Refuse to mention my disagreement with my overseer with anybody–including my wife. There is power of life and death in the tongue. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. I’d have to allow God to break me and cause me to have a pure heart in this matter.
- Put to death any of my own desires and prepare to surrender to the wishes of my overseer however inconvenient they may be.
- Meet with my overseer and honestly share all of the concerns and issues at stake. Inform him that I’d prefer not to go and if he could find someone else, I’d really appreciate it.
- Submit. After a healthy conversation, my overseer states that he appreciates my concerns but he still needs me to go. So, I go.
I don’t have to pray about my decision. I don’t have to talk with anybody else. I have no option according to God’s established government in my life. I fly to Alabama with a smile on my face. God’s authority has spoken.
The enemy has caused many to believe that we can’t experience freedom while being submitted. This is simply not true.
Freedom from authority is rebellion.
Freedom in the absence of authority is anarchy.
Freedom under authority is liberty.
The process of response to my leader described above not only must take place between a pastor and his overseers, but also between a youth pastor and his pastor. Also, between the ministers in the pews and their leaders. We’ll eventually see the city Church established once again and pastors will be submitting to apostles in their city. It’s a process that is quite foreign to most.
The 100% Church and the Call to Corporate Mission Advance
This issue of pastors becoming salesmen has forced the rapid growth of para-church ministries. Leaders of para-church ministries have a greater ability to call those people who have partnered with them on their mission field into a position of readiness and response.
The success of the mission is at a lesser risk as all hands are on deck and ready to go. Pastors don’t always have it as easy.
For example, a pastor may hear God tell him to gather his flock together and fast from all food for 3 days. In God’s government, there would be no resistance, complaining or negativity. 100% of the participants in the church, who had already made up their mind to be unified and ready to press ahead as warriors for God, would immediately embrace this God given mandate. All would fast. If someone had a concern with the directive, that’s OK. A good servant won’t simply ignore the plan of action, but will rather make the effort to talk to the leader. A good leader will certainly listen to their concerns with compassion.
Much dialogue can occur. However, at the end of the discussion, the two would be ‘agreed’–moving in the same direction. The events of 1988 in Baton Rouge changed that considerably.
Now, the process that poor pastor must go through when the need to call the troops to action is enough to cause him to resign!
- He studies endlessly in the Word so he can ‘cover all of his bases’. He is already preparing his heart for resistance–the resistance that was perpetuated back in 1988.
- Due to this certain impending resistance, he prays long and hard for God to help him cast vision and sell this strategy to the church by giving him ‘the words to say’.
- He shares his impression that God wants this three-day fast with his leadership team, hoping to gain support. He knows he’ll need it.
- He looks at the schedule to make sure he doesn’t offend anybody by scheduling the fast during a time when someone else has already planned his or her own event.
- He prays again asking God for more insight as to the purpose of the fast. He wants to make sure he has enough info so as to effectively sell this idea to the people.
- He stresses out when God doesn’t give further insight.
- He starts to guess how many will actually respond so he can devise a plan to effectively make sure those who don’t respond don’t feel alienated. After all, an affirmed and happy family is very important.
- He then shares how he ‘feels led’ that God ‘would like’ the church to fast. Those who also ‘feel led’ should sign up in the back as they leave.
- The same five or six people who show up for everything sign up and the rest of the sheet is left blank. It’s a monument of a failed mission.
- The next time God says something, the pastor will be even less zealous in sharing the dream.
Here are my notes from last night’s teaching:
- Threat 9. Seeking an Enhanced Life
1. People generally want God to make their current lives better. They want an enhancement, an upgrade.
2. However, the demands of revival include the willingness to embrace a fire that won’t warm your flesh—it will consume your flesh.
3. I wonder if the church would listen to “prophetic words for 2013” if they included extreme surrender & death to self instead of benefits.
1. We should certainly understand that the great and terrible day of the Lord is at near! We are living as in the days of Noah.
2. “I Thess. 5:2,3 …the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them…”
1. “Just as false prophets of old fraudulently forecast a bright future, in spite of the imminence of God's judgment (Jer.6:14, 8:11,14:13-14; Lam.2:14; Ezek. 13:10,16; Mic. 3:5) so they will again in future days just before the final Day of the Lord destruction.”
2. Ezekiel 13:15-16 (ESV) 15 Thus will I spend my wrath upon the wall and upon those who have smeared it with whitewash, and I will say to you, The wall is no more, nor those who smeared it, 16 the prophets of Israel who prophesied concerning Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her, when there was no peace, declares the Lord GOD.
3. Matthew 24:36-39 (ESV) 36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
3. I was chatting with a pastor from Quebec… he said people call him the ‘death pastor’… because he is unrelenting in his call to die to self.
1. What??!
2. Somehow it’s a derogatory thing to call people to lay down their lives?
3. Messages of personal benefit are rampant. Joseph Prince is teaching a very dangerous message.
1. No confession, no repentance, no way to lose salvation.
4. Evan Roberts called for people to gather—but not all people—only those who were willing to make a total surrender.
1. Revival doesn’t enhance lives, it crushes them. If we attempt to advance with a semi-surrendered people, the fire simply will not fall.
2. It’s not that blessing won’t come…but there are a lot of people who are looking for an enhancement to lives that are actually on agenda to be broken, not built up.
3. We don’t want life as we know it to become better! We have to lay that life on the altar and trade it for the cross!
1. It’s the same thing that was happening when the money changers were in the temple.
1. They wanted a better life.
2. It’s the same thing that happened at the triumphal entry.
3. Matthew 21:8-9 (ESV) 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
1. Hosanna literally means: Save us now!
2. They wanted an enhanced life!
3. Jesus decided to answer their cry, but when they realized it wasn’t what they wanted, they turned on him!
4. That spirit is in the church everywhere!
5. Matthew 27:20-23 (ESV) 20 Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. 21 The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” 22 Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” 23 And he said, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!”
5. Since I’ve been in Detroit I’ve heard a lot about revival. It seems the whole region is crying out for it. However, this is where the root of the disturbance in my spirit exists.
1. Most every time revival is mentioned, the intent of that desire is to experience some sort of breakthrough, blessing or restitution.
2. It’s time we STOP crying out for God to revive the economy, for resolved issues, for racial tensions to subside, for a fixed city… and START crying out for God and God alone!
3. God is jealous and he won’t allow Detroit to be satisfied by money, security or anything else until we are satisfied in Him and no one or nothing else!
4. Jesus’ own disciples fell into the trap too… they focused on the enhancement instead of the mission!
1. Acts 1:6-11 (ESV) 6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
6. DO NOT expect revival until we return to our first love and lay down our lives daily. It WILL NOT COME! In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the situation in this region got dramatically worse. The choice is ours, however.
7. It’s absolutely shocking to me that so much emphasis is placed on the pursuit of breakthrough yet the call to breakthrough into a pursuit of God falls on deaf ears.
8. Will we only gather and pray if we have a hope of personal blessing?
1. Where are all of the hungry people in Detroit? The stadiums should be filled with zealous, praying people every night of the week! Have the cares of life and entertainment so bewitched us that we have become convinced that being with God is not worth it?
9. I propose starting a movement of encounter which only has one goal—to be fully satisfied in enjoying and responding to the Lover of our souls. Nothing else matters. If we all have to live in a cardboard box on the streets of Detroit to encounter God, so be it! Our goal is not financial! It’s not selfish! It’s to be with God! That is all!
- Threat 10. A Lack of Immediate Response
1. We must develop a ‘drop everything ‘culture. An ‘all hands on deck’ culture.
1. There will be regular calls to prayer, calls to action… monthly, weekly, that will require a ‘drop everything’ culture.
2. My intercessors know this… if I send them an issue, depending on the severity, they drop everything… they get on a conference call… they pray.
3. If we have fallen into the trap of seeking an enhanced life, we won’t respond to the inconvenient call!
1. This is a major danger in the church today!
2. We’ll say, I don’t see how my life will be enhanced by participating, so I will hold back.
3. This is why we teach people in theLab to be alert… to always be on time… we don’t break for holidays… we don’t excuse people for vacations… it’s a drop everything culture of consecration.
4. This model isn’t just for theLab!!!! This is the life of the Believer!!!!!
5. Christmas morning at IHOP is just like any other day of the week! They stay on the wall… they don’t relax the mandate.
6. Let me set you free from a Christian cop out.
1. When called to action, don’t ever say, “I’ll pray about it”… unless you are truly going to invest some hard core prayer and then report back exactly what God said!
2. To say that we’ll pray about it… and then do what we want to do instead of exactly what God said to do whether we pray or not… is taking the Lord’s name in vain!
1. If we tell people that God said that we aren’t to do something when God never said that at all is taking his name in vain!
2. Most things don’t require praying about… and we’re a praying church!
3. In a drop everything culture where the prophetic calls are constant, if everybody just stopped everything to pray about whether they should respond or not nothing would ever be accomplished.
4. Check out a couple passages in Joel:
2. Joel 1:14 Consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders
and all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.
3. And in Joel 2:
1. Joel 2:15-17 (ESV) 15 Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; 16 gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. 17 Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep and say, “Spare your people, O LORD, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”
1. The people are saying “Where is their God!!!!!!!!”
2. Connecticut! Where was God!!!! Church!!!! Are we so asleep that we don’t see this?
3. We have to gather!!!!! Be together!!! Be instant!!! Pray!!!! Always!!!!!!
4. At 5pm every Sunday, be in the prayer room!!! Cry out to the Lord!!!
2. We live in a day where there's Twitter, email, Facebook, video and more… in every house in the city!!! We have phones that are many times smarter than the computer that took a rocket to the moon!
3. There is no excuse to not hear and respond to the prophetic decrees moment by moment!
4. We must be alert and ready! Alarms are being sounded, yet are any hearing?
5. The call a couple of years ago was for every church to gather at Fire in February. Few responded. The same thing with The Call. Few responded. The prophets are calling the church of Detroit to respond, and immediately!
4. This is one reason why church schedules must be flexible.
5. It’s also a reason why daily meetings are critical.
6. When prophetic instruction is received, the entire region must know about it right away, and the people must respond.
1. The Manitou way of doing things… continual data, continual response.
2. Luke 9:59-62 (ESV) 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
3. We have to learn to do two things:
1. Embrace key prophets in the region
2. Stay tuned in, stay in your email, stay ready for an urgent message that just may require you respond in hours time!
7. In Joshua 3, the instructions were clear, and everybody responded in unison.
1. Consecrate yourselves today…for tomorrow!!!!
8. There’s no way to fulfill this mighty mission if we are only together one day a week (actually 2 hours a week!).
1. There’s way too much work to be done!
2. As an example, Mike Bickle recently called an urgent meeting. Most of the departments at IHOP in Kansas City were immediately closed and the people all gathered together to receive an urgent prophetic message.
3. In Detroit, we must promote extreme alertness and flexibility so we can respond moment by moment to the demands of regional revival.
4. If we are mostly focused on our local, personal ventures, we’ll stay disconnected from the greater, regional mission. The response won’t be what is necessary and revival will most likely never come.
Video & Notes- Quenching the wrong fire : The spirit of revival hit Revival Church last night
I will never tone down the activity of the Holy Spirit out of respect of those less hungry.
That’s my promise to Revival Church.
Watch an anointed, burning new message on our XPmedia channel here: http://www.xpmedia.com/en0XbEQ1SLWU
I share about the surprising and historic move of God at Revival Church last night. Undone doesn’t even begin to describe what I’m experiencing.
After a shift at theLab on Friday and Saturday, I released a sharp prophetic message of revival last night that resulted in groans and cries of travail as the people flooded to the altars.
Some comments about this weekend:
“I am sobered by the depth of God's Presence I was engulfed in last night. Selah.”
"Last night, an intense spirit of repentance fell like nothing I've ever experienced before. All I can say is, wake up people of God. Wake up, wake up, wake up!"
“There is so much freedom… so much burden that was lifted off of me that I can not explain it. God is just speaking so clearly now. I believe that everyone that was there tonight will carry that awakening every way they go. Shaking people, shaking their surroundings into an unexpected awakening. This was only one night, like you said, its only the beginning.”
“YESSS LORD! I've been manifesting since…”
“Friday night, i literally felt something snap (i could feel the shift in the spirit). Inside of me things have been very very different. It is almost like i am a completely different person. Personally i am experiencing a shaking i have never felt before and it has not stopped!!”
QUENCHING THE WRONG FIRE
Is the church quenching the fiery darts of the enemy or is it quenching the Holy Spirit?
With all of the darts that are hitting the church in the form of depression, fear, bitterness, unforgiveness, apathy and on and on, you have to know that the wrong fire is being quenched all too often.
Watch the video. Send it to everyone you know. It’s time to gather the church! The time is now for 1000 people to travel with us each Friday night from church to church as we pray in fire!
Here’s my notes from a historic night last night at Revival Church:
Quenching the Wrong Fire
I. Come Holy Spirit!
a. I want to make it clear: The Holy Spirit is welcome at Revival Church.
i. He has no restrictions, no boundaries, no limits. His tangible, raging fire must engulf us!
ii. We are going to gain to understand what a MOVE OF GOD is. When God arrives we won’t be able to stop weeping and trembling under his weight!
iii. People will flood these altars! Repentance will spread through the city! Tears will pour through the streets!
iv. The God of the Bible is tragically foreign to the modern church.
v. As long as we are content to live without revival, we will – Leonard Ravenhill
vi. My God! We are content with nice meetings and life as usual!
vii. Evan Roberts "Congregate the people who are willing to make a total surrender. Pray and wait. Believe God’s promises. Hold daily meetings.”
1. It’s time! Brian Simmons just wrote me and said he sees extended meetings breaking out at Revival Church!!!!!
2. There is a fire that is to consume the church.
3. There is an Elijah level firestorm that has evaded the modern church.
b. 1 Thessalonians 5:19 (ESV) 19 Do not quench the Spirit.
i. The church of America has been quenching the wrong spirit!
ii. We are quenching the wrong fire! The fire of the Holy Spirit was meant to rage!
iii. Ephesians 6:16 (NKJV) 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
iv. We are to quench the fire of the enemy but we’ve chosen instead to quench the fire of the Holy Spirit!
v. Why is the enemy continually assaulting the church? Why is the church depressed, divorcing, sick, bitter?
1. The fire of the enemy is hitting us because the fire of God is not!
2. How do we deal with the fiery darts of the enemy? The same way we experience the fire of God—FAITH!
3. It’s an issue of belief vs. unbelief!
4. OHHH! We must fix the problem of an encounterless, doubt driven religious experience!
5. Biblically signs, wonders and miracles are normal! They are to happen everywhere all the time! What has happened??!
c. Mark 16:17-18 (NIV) 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
1. Today signs, wonders, miracles and healings are special and rare, and we are OK with that!
2. Do we not see that the Bible tells us an evidence of belief is that it’s not rare at all! It’s common! The church is supposed to be such a shock to the culture of the world, a strange company of burning believers!
3. Evan in Wales in 1904: “My mission is first to the churches. When the churches are aroused to their duty, men of the world will be swept into the Kingdom. A whole church on its knees is irresistible.”
4. Show Brownsville video (dropbox)
5. 1 Peter 2:9 (KJV) 9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
d. 1 Kings 18:20-24 (ESV) 20 So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. 21 And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. 22 Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the LORD, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men. 23 Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. 24 And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” And all the people answered, “It is well spoken.”
1. The God who answers by fire, he is God!
2. It’s a strong prophetic messenger that will bring an end to this!
3. Declare the word of the Lord! Call down the fire!
e. 2 Kings 1:9-14 (ESV) 9 Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty men with his fifty. He went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, “O man of God, the king says, ‘Come down.’ ” 10 But Elijah answered the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. 11 Again the king sent to him another captain of fifty men with his fifty. And he answered and said to him, “O man of God, this is the king’s order, ‘Come down quickly!’ ” 12 But Elijah answered them, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. 13 Again the king sent the captain of a third fifty with his fifty. And the third captain of fifty went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah and entreated him, “O man of God, please let my life, and the life of these fifty servants of yours, be precious in your sight. 14 Behold, fire came down from heaven and consumed the two former captains of fifty men with their fifties, but now let my life be precious in your sight.”
1. We must become experts in fire!
2. The moment we do, people will flood to these altars from every bar, movie theater, mall, school… they will suddenly show up trembling, crying, wrenching in grief, desperate for God as the fire consumes them!
3. There is a message that must start to blow through the church! The religious, inward focused, lazy, sleeping, resistant church is blocking the fire of God that the world is waiting for! Get out of the way! God is coming! Repent! Turn!
f. Joel 2:15-17 (NKJV) 15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly; 16 Gather the people, Sanctify the congregation, Assemble the elders, Gather the children and nursing babes; Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, And the bride from her dressing room. 17 Let the priests, who minister to the LORD, Weep between the porch and the altar; Let them say, "Spare Your people, O LORD, And do not give Your heritage to reproach, That the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?' "
1. I’m blowing the trumpet! I’m calling 1000 people to gather on Friday nights! We’re declaring an inconvenient devotion to fire in Detroit! Where are those who are talking about revival? Where are the pastors? Where are the revivalists? Wake up!
2. We were born for this! We weren’t born to simply survive, simply raise a family, simply find a job. We were created for something greater! To burn! To groan! To be fully revived! Now!
3. We were created to return the enemy’s fiery darts with a night and day onslaught of fiery missiles of fierce holy violence!
g. Romans 13:11-12 (NKJV) 11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.
1. It’s time! Put on armor you warriors!
2. William Booth “We must wake ourselves up! Or somebody else will take our place, and bear our cross, and thereby rob us of our crown.”
3. Revelation 3:15-19 (NKJV) 15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'–and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked– 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.
4. Zealous!!!!
h. Romans 13:13-14 (NKJV) 13 Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
1. People are wrecked by a spirit of strife, mad at other people, derailed because of their disappointment in others, in friends, in bosses, in pastors, in churches. STOP IT AND REPENT! Turn! Burn! Rise up! Put on the LORD Jesus Christ!
2. Detroit is going to Hell while the church argues over who’s most important, who has the best vision, how we’re disappointed, upset, rejected. STOP IT! Jesus didn’t expect people to put him on their throne, he allowed their rejection to put him on a bloody cross so he could set them free! My God! Stop looking for the thrones of man! Take on the cross of rejection!
3. It’s the only way the fiery darts of the enemy can be turned on him!
4. It’s time to stop quenching the fire of the Holy Spirit! It’s time to believe, to sign up for a ridiculous level of commitment to revival, to burn night and day and quench not only the darts of the enemy on our lives, but the fiery darts that have been raining down on Detroit for decades. Revival is coming to Detroit, church!!!!!!!!!!
It’s not enough : Detroit Revival Church : A new sound
It’s not enough. That’s the cry that’s bellowing deep within my spirit. 
I absolutely love and crave a revival atmosphere where the Spirit of God moves freely and in power. I know there is a yearning within many for the same thing, and the Holy Spirit is awakening us to that desire.
It’s important and it’s God- but it’s not enough. God never intended it to be. An atmosphere like that is in some ways a conduit of the greater mission, and in other ways an overflow of the greater mission.
I often hear about people’s frustration about the lack of Holy Spirit activity, freedom and anointing in church services. I understand that frustration. However, we have to be careful not to presume that a breakout service is the ultimate goal.
If we are using the system of the church to give us what we want, what we demand, even if it’s a holy encounter, then we are embracing a religious spirit. My favorite definition of religion is this: Man’s attempt to use God or God’s systems to get what he wants. We can’t use God’s system, but we can and should avail ourselves to it, and to God Himself.
We have to understand that the yearning for anointing and freedom in our church services isn’t primarily due to a God initiated desire to experience His presence alone, it is primarily so we can experience God’s presence which will free us up to know him deeply and fulfill our ministries.
I’ve been in indescribable revival style, Holy Spirit heavy atmospheres that have transformed me forever. It’s common to come out of a service like that with a sense of having experienced the crescendo. It feels great, we experience God, we are free, and we want more! This is good… very good. However, we must be disciplined enough to ask the greater question- what does this new found freedom enable me to do for the Kingdom?
Revival Church will be intently focused on experiencing God in overwhelming and deep ways as often as we can. The tremble in the fear of the Lord must be normal in this church. However, we cannot head home on a Sunday hoping for a repeat the next Sunday as a driving focus. That can’t be our primary thought. We have to look beyond the horizon and see where this manifest presence of God can lead us.
Instead of being satisfied with local church transformation (as wonderful as that is), we must not relent until we experience city, national and international transformation. The powerful encounter with God is in itself a fulfilled mission… without question. We are to pray continually, know him deeply, experience transforming intimacy night and day. Absolutely. But, when we encounter God at this level, we cannot help but to be driven with tears in our eyes for the greater things. For greater revival. For transformed lives. For impact that’s felt around the world.
The experience in the Upper Room in Acts was life-altering to say the least. That encounter however simply could not be contained in that room! It had to explode into society.
If a revival atmosphere in our church isn’t ultimately felt in a much greater radius, you have to question whether it’s revival at all.
Acts 2:1-2 (ESV) 1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
Acts 2:5-6 (ESV) 5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
Last night I was at an event with Barbara Yoder and she mentioned a new sound that’s coming. I’ve heard others say the same thing. I agree. I believe this sound will be multi-faceted, but it will be without question the sound of God. As in Acts 2, When the sound comes, the multitudes will gather!
The sound of God will invade the house and it will be heard in the city.
Join us for our next Revival Church service… every Sunday at 6pm!