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God's Word for the Coming Revival
by Bruce Greer
3/19/2009 / Prophecy
God is fixing to send revival to us!
It has been promised and God cannot lie. We are told in Ezekiel 36 that the world is going to watch in amazement as God revives His bride to be. It will be His work, not ours, and the world will KNOW it is God's hand and God will get all the glory. God promises in Ezekiel 36:33 to restore us to our first glory, as in the, book of Acts, and the transformation will be like changing a desolate place into the Garden of Eden.
Now the bad news. This coming revival will not be deserved. As a matter of fact, God goes out of His way to make sure we know it is not for our sakes He will revive us. Why? Are you sitting down? Because, He says, we have blasphemed His Holy name wherever we have gone. Saints of God, this post will be painful to read, and the temptation will be there to just stop reading. I plead with you in the love for our Lord, keep reading and take it in. Be like the Bereans to at least search it out whether these things be so. If after you have heard the message, you think I am crazy or misguided, then I am willing to be labeled as such.
And how are we blaspheming His name? "I mean, come on, we are saved, go to church, are involved in Christian activities, spend hours with our Bibles searching out correct doctrine. Surely you must be mistaken, Bruce. Blasphemy is a BIG sin! How dare you try to lay it on our shoulders! Who are you to judge??"
This is the answer God has for us...all of us. If we judge ourselves, we will not be judged. It is only when we say "We have no sin to repent of", that our sin remains. So do you have ears to here HOW we have blasphemed His Holy name wherever we have gone? Read on.....
It is because, the Lord says in Ezekiel 36:21, we testify to the world in our contentedness and comfort of where we are in the Lord...
WE are the people of the Lord!
Do you realize, fellow saints, we are telling the world with the way we live, the way we interact as His body, that this is the best God can do and is God's will for us? We are testifying that this is what God intended when He died on the cross. We display to the world in our pride that we are living examples of what God can do in a persons' life if they will but yield to Him. This is how much God can set us apart from the world. This is how much God can save His people from their sins. Instead of blushing in our folly and failure to walk the walk in victory, we brag that this is how much joy God can put in one's heart. This, world, is exactly what God expected when He died to set us free. This world, what you see in God's church is God's definition of FREE INDEED!
And God weeps over our complacency. What is our explanation for our paultry condition? How will we explain it to God when He died to set us free from our old man and begin life anew in our new man, created in righteousness, with sin lying dead at our feet? How will we excuse our evil hearts of unbelief when the word plainly tells us ...
Unto us are given exceeding great and precious promises, that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature
How will we explain our defeated, splintered church, with its 683 sects and denominations most all thinking they have it right and all those others will most likely miss Heaven, those blind leading the blind! How do we explain intricately balanced correct doctrines in our heads but no life in our dead hollow hearts? How can we be so satisfied with so little when Jesus offers us so much... freedom, victory, peace, fruits of the spirit, His abiding presence, comfort, wisdom, power?
What is our answer to the scripture God gives promising that with EVERY temptation, He will make a way of escape so that we do not fall....ever? What do we do when God confronts us with the following promises, promises that not only we do not even believe anymore, period?
Listen to the promises in His word....
Praise be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ Jesus...
I can do all things thru Christ who strengthens me....
...but you are not in the flesh but in the spirit...
You are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God...
Whome the Son sets free is free indeed...
Reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God...
Do we believe these? Let's be honest for once...100% honest, with no excuses or reasons as to why these promises are "misunderstood". No, we don't believe, and yes, we do have an evil heart of unbelief.
We go out of our way to explain WHY we are constantly falling, constantly willfully sinning, knowing even before we sin that we will simply confess it again for forgiveness, even though the word plainly tells us that if we do this, there remains no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for judgment. The amazing thing? We don't care that it says that, nor do we believe it! We mock God in our satisfaction to let sin reign still in our bodies, and we are content to argue "doctrine' rather than deal with our sin stained hearts. We fall back on the forgiveness of God as a get-out-of-hell-free pass, allowing us to walk the walk the way WE want, rather than submit to the God of the Universe and beg Him for deliverance from our old nature. We make peace with our constant failings and then having the audacity to explain why the scriptures do not mean what they plainly say. WE comfort ourselves with "We are only human" and "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven", and our hearts do not even cry out once to be set free! Saints, do you realize the EVIL in our actions? We dishonor God no only by the way we live but as well by the way we make excuses to nullify the exceeding great and precious promises of God.
I can find 50 more of these amazing mind-bending promises if you like. Do you realize how much pure evil unbelief has infiltrated our hearts, and to our shame, we do not blush at this, but rather, we LOVE to have it so! Instead of us pleading to God, bowing before him in humility, begging Him to make these scriptures true in our lives, we weave elaborate doctrinal reasons as to why they do not mean what they plainly say. That, my fellow saints, is blaspheming His name, and we are ALL guilty.
The world looks at us in disgust. It is the only word I know that conveys the depth of disdain they feel for us. I walked with them for 21 of my 37 years in my own wilderness experience and saw first-hand how the church appears to them. We brag that we have the truth, but then do not walk in it. We are hypocrites, drawing near Him with our lips, but our hearts are far from Him. We are content in our "religious piety and defeat, and soothe ourselves with our doctrine of forgiveness, assuming it covers willful sin and a heart that does not even long to be truly free. It does not.
Listen, if you admit that you still have sin in your life, why are you not on your knees begging God to get it out of you so you dishonor His name no more? Instead, we boast...
We are the people of the Lord!
Look at us, world, and you will see God. Has it hit you yet? Is your heart convicted of its guilt? For healing to come, we must first admit in sorrow our shame in how we have shamed God. The shame is on me, you and all who have been satisfied with a Christianity that takes His name in vain.
In Isaiah, God tells us...
My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
Do you see the mind of the Lord as to our current situation? We are still called HIS people. God still loves us! He longs to see us walk in the fullness of our salvation, where all know Him, from the least to the greatest. But we must no longer be satisfed with our religion of Christianity, that has no life to set one free and make him walk in newness of life. We cannot be satsfied any more than with HIM Himself. Our hearts, if we are His children, should be longing for Him, seeking Him , being close to Him. But they are not. We are content without Him as long as we have our pet doctrines and our religious activities. The world is not impressed. Neither is God. We need LIVING water again, not dead religion. We need..
Him!
And I speak of EVERY Christian denomination out there. None of us can say it is not us to whom God refers. ALL the virgins slept! We are ALL, every single one of us, guilty before our God. Why? Because we are all part of the BODY of Christ and been part of the problem, dishonoring His name, content that our defeated walk as the best God has for us. It is not. There is more, MUCH MORE!
It is time to realize that what is needed is repentance for our pride and arrogance in walking the walk and yet not being free. It is to our shame these words must be written but it is for our good. God is always for our good. I am convinced God is fixing to move, not because we deserve him to, but because He will no longer allow us to dishonor Him with our lives of defeat and lack of love and then make excuses for why.
Brokenness is the first step. an acknowledgement that we do not possess what we profess...the Holy Spirit indwelling us, causing to will and to do of His good pleasure. It is time we realized that from the day we bowed our knee to confess our sin and the need for Jesus' sacrifice to wash away our sins, that we were bought with a price...His blood, and we were no longer now our own. It is no longer our life, but His. We must see that to truly walk the Christian walk, it is a radical giving of ourselves to do his will on earth, not our own. No longer can we preach a Christianity that costs nothing. Count the cost, Jesus said, it will cost you your life.
He who loves his life will lose it, but he who loses His life ofr my sake will find it unto eternal life.
No more can we seek OUR blessing, OUR riches, OUR kingdom. We must be like the prodigal son who retuned to His father after wasting His inheritance... and confessed in tears "I am no longer worthy to be a son. I will just be your servant." No longer can we proudly and arrogantly say to the world "See? WE are the people of the Lord!" Let us get God's heart and finally let the world see what God's people really look like.
It is God's money, not 10%...all of it. It is God's life, not Saturday or Sunday mornings...all of it. It is God's time, not ours. Let us go about doing HIS business, not our own. We must finally break before God in brokenness and humility and admit we do not have the victory and we MUST, lest we die!
Revival is coming, Saints, and there will be a separation between the religious and the saved. The religious are the virgins with no oil, the saints, the true called ones destined for Heaven, are the virgins with oil... and He is the oilHIM. Let us go into our prayer closets and truly tell Him how much we long for Him in the deep recesses of our hearts, how much we need Him to walk the walk in us, just as He promised, that we have tried in our own strength and failed...miserable, having a form of Godliness but denying the power thereof. Let us admit to Him we have not found the peace that passes all understanding, nor the rest that remaineth for the people of God, nor the victory over the flesh.
Let us take God's word of Ezekiel 36 that promises that the blessing of the new covenant will be that He will put His spirit inside us, and CAUSES us to will and to do of His good pleasure. Can His salvation be that wonderful? Can it really be for the weak and helpless? Yes, Saints it can.
May I take for a moment to breathe fresh air into this strong word of the Lord. God desires us, longs for us, and loves us still, even after all of our pride and foolishness. He longs to give us new hearts, new minds, and a victory we have not ever even imagined. No longer will Christians battle alcoholism, addictions to pornography, drugs, materialistic hearts, religious pride, self will, and arrogance. We will be filled with His love and loving will not be an effort but as simple as breathing. This is the latter rain God has promised. It is sure and it is coming. Do you smell the approaching rain? I do. It is simply going to amaze us and be nothing short of a miracle and it will be witness by ALL, and that, dear brother, dear sister, is something you can take to the bank.
Woe to you, strong ones who block the way of children called into His rest. Woe to you, legalists, who think that by sheer effort and self control we can purify our hearts and walk above sin. Do you not realize in God's kingdom, self control is not a pre-requisite to becoming like Christ? In God's kingdom, in His promised new covenant, self-control is a fruit of the spirit, a promise to us who have battled our flesh for years, nay, decades, with still no victory? Woe to you, religious ones, proud that you are not like the sinners of the world, and puiffed up in your knowledge of the scriptures while your hearts are yet dead.
As good as the coming revival will be for millions, many more are about to have their world turned upside down as God exposes frauds in the kingdom. I counsel you, not I , but the Lord, says to the preachers getting fat on the flock, do not think you can hide anymore under your cloak of religion. Secret sins are about to be revealed. Hearts and heart motives will come to light. God will not be mocked any longer, nor will He let His flock anymore be used for the glory of men. I pray all who read these words are encouraged to seek the face of God in humility and simply desire HIM.
Can you imagine, hungry saints? The world is about to witness its first true for-all-to-see miracle- the restoration of the church to one of power, unity, joy and love, and above all, the manifest presence of the Lord. No more will we be debating each other over scriptures that mean NOTHING if we do not have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. No more will we see brother pronounce judgement on another to hell for not believing like he believes. No more will we see pastors muddy the waters that the flock needs to drink. Instead, we will see the return of the 5 fold ministry in power. We will see in this time of financial upheaval a body that truly cares for itselfand its own, and those blessed of God will share with those that have need, and none will lack. We will witness miracles, true honest to God miracles, and the result will be a revival the likes of which we have not ever even dreamed. The world will look on and marvel and like in the Book of Acts, they in the world will either be drawn to us or stay out of our way. No more will they say "The paltry church is full of hypocrites, but instead "The wasteland called the church that I have hated and despised for years is now like the Garden of Eden. I see Jesus in them. This is God's work, not theirs. Many will run to us. Some will run from us. But no one will be neutral and non-caring anymore!"
I am no one, a servant of God, undeserving and in myself, left to my own devices, a rebel to the cause of Christ. But God is merciful , and His mercy past understanding, and He takes the simple things and confounds the wise. I have not "sought" the Lord. I have been "chased down" and loved.
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