Humpty Dumpty

“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”  Jeremiah 2:13

Lately, I’ve been attending a Bible reading group at a church that I would have
never thought I would visit.  Their requests for discipleship from their pastor
has gained no traction, so out of hunger and desperation, they have formed their
own reading group, and have asked me to attend because they had read my booklet
on Four Steps to Revival and felt that I had something to offer.

I was surprised to find a genuine hunger for God in these people that I would
have thought had been dried up long ago.  There is no demonstrated move of the
Holy Spirit in this church, but rather an adherence to archaic liturgies and
formal worship repeated each week out of a book of prayers that was written
centuries ago.  And yet their hunger still pushes up through the arid ground of
a church that has remained fallow for longer than anyone can remember.

Although they welcome me with open arms, I am still a “Pentecostal”, a distant
cousin of what they are used to.  Pentecost is considered an anomaly to them
that has sprung up on the fringes of the Christian faith.   How odd that sounds
from my perspective!  It’s as if certain elements of Christendom had chosen a
different, more unusual form of worship– acceptable, but not mainstream. 

But we didn’t choose Pentecost.  Pentecost chose us.  The outpouring of the Holy
Ghost was not roped in like a wayward steer to our corral – God roped us into
His corral, lassoed with the ropes of His Spirit.  An outpouring of a true
revival of the Spirit of God can not be manufactured or theologically created. 
It is prayed in by a desperation that is pressed into our souls by a God who is
yearning for His people to return unto Him.  Revival is something that descends
from God so that prayers can ascend to Him so that He can bring down an
outpouring to rescue the people of God who are starving.

I listened to these folks proudly repeat what their bishop had told them to
encourage them against this homosexual encroachment on their church.  This
particular denomination has been under severe attack by an element that has
introduced homosexuality into their priesthood, even consecrating actively gay
bishops.  They are hoping that, if they do not raise too much of a fuss against
this liberal intrusion of the Gay agenda, the storm would pass over them and
their church would not be taken away from them.  In other words, if we just
don’t provoke the devil, maybe he will leave us alone. 

Words of encouragement are fine, but words alone do little if not delivered
under the anointed power of the Holy Ghost.  And like Gideon, I wondered where the manifestation of that power was in their ancient communion?  Where are the signs that Jesus said would follow His believers?

I wondered when the last time this bishop had laid hands on the sick and seen
them recover right before his eyes?  I mused that, had I asked that question out
loud, they would probably have asked me in retort when was the last time that
I had.  Well, it was a few weeks ago.  And not just one, but a whole line of
people coming up to the altar for healing, everyone of which got healed.  And
what about my church?  Had it ever raised the dead?  Well yes, just a few months
ago we had a man who was clinically brain-dead and was about to have the plug
pulled on his life support.  We stormed the Throne of God for him, and just
before they pulled the plug, he popped up out of bed, as alive and well as he
had been before he had been sick.

Why do people hang on to dead forms of worship when God has so much life to
offer if they would just humble themselves and let go of their old carnal ways? 
Is there something in human nature that makes us afraid to let go and allow
ourselves to fall into His hands?  Are we so stuck in our generational
conventions that we have forgotten to walk in a totally yielded faith?  Is the
certainty of the tangible institution of church more adhesive than an abstract
trust in the Spirit of God?  What are they hanging onto?

As always, our direction comes from the Word of God.  The law that God gave in
Leviticus for infected houses, including houses of God, was to get out of the
house and then scour it for all forms of leprosy, whether that be sin or any
form of heresy.  If the house cannot be healed, then everything that has been
left in the house was to be taken outside the camp and burned.  So a church that
has leprosy found in it should be scoured.  If it cannot healed, then get out
lest you be destroyed along with it.

When we content ourselves with the old wineskins of the status quo in the face
of manifest obsolescence, we make a choice to forsake the Living Waters and hang
on to broken cisterns that can hold no water.  We have the form of church and a
glimmer of righteousness, but we when we forsake the power thereof, we leave
ourselves with nothing to cement those broken cisterns back together again. 
Like Humpty Dumpty, a church that has had a great fall cannot be put together
again, and it is time to seek the ethereal instead of the ecclesiastical.

The time is coming soon when Satan will promote his false ecumenical church to
bring the entire world into his fold.  His minions will do great wonders, even
calling down fire from heaven, and all that are upon the Earth will worship
him.  If the leprosy that infects the churches to join this one-world religion
cannot be cleansed, will we still adhere to our traditions and not rouse
ourselves from our convenience to revive a faith that is not based upon
theological conventions but on the raw Spirit of God?

 “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” 
(Rev 18:4) 

If you would like a free copy of "Four Steps to Revival", contact our office at (972) 938-8502 or email at dale@revivalfire.org