What about Toronto and Brownsville? Were they moves of God or deceptions of the enemy? I would like to hear from some of you who actually experienced these moves and were touched by them in some way. I see so much negative junk on the internet.

John and Carol Arnott brought a team from Toronto to our congregation (Mission Viejo Vineyard) for a conference early in the move because he believed that our founding pastor Ed Piorek helped to kick off the beginning of the revival with a conference on ‘The Father’s Love’. 13 years later, I can still see the positive effects of that weekend on the lives of many that I know.

What did I personally get out of the Toronto move? Greater intimacy with God as a Father who really does love me and wants only the best. I knew all that theologically in my head, but it really makes a difference to really experience it and believe it. Also, even though I was getting on in years, the Lord was not done with me in spite of all the mistakes I had made in the past. He was specifically calling me to stick around as a ‘Caleb’ to help the next generation. To help rise up, train, and support a vast army of young people that are called to bring a major world harvest.

When I read about these moves on the internet, all I read about is all the negative junk that the enemy sowed. What the enemy did has overtaken and ended up characterizing these moves in the minds of so many who weren’t even there.

What about some of you who were there or were touched by these moves in some way? I want to hear from you. I would particularly like to hear from some of you who were touched by the Brownsville revival since I know so little about it. I have observed the changes that took place in many that attended the services at Toronto including Heidi and Roland Baker who were somewhat discouraged when they when but came away with a new anointing that has resulted in thousands of churches and hundreds of thousands of converts in Africa—still counting.

This is a continuation of some of the same things we were talking about in a previous post: Revival: Change Now or Change Later. The following is a prophetic word sent to me from ‘Streams of Revival’ from Charisma +online for May 22, 2007, given by Lou Engle (www.thecall.com).

He is suggesting that now is a good time for Christians to pray, fast, and turn to God with all our hearts; that the Lord would like to release a great spiritual awakening in our land. Also, Lou Engle cites Joel 2 as being particularly meaningful for our time and situation:

“I believe that if we respond in repentance in this moment of time, we could release a great revival of confession of sin and a cleansing by the blood of Jesus that could draw us back into marital faithfulness with our Bridegroom. I believe a great spiritual awakening could be at hand that would affect the elections of 2008 and overthrow Jezebel’s death march in this nation.”

“What must we do? God’s holy prescription for our diseased state in times of national crisis and moral collapse is in Joel 2, verses 12-13, 15-16, 18 and 28, which describe a solemn assembly of united fasting and prayer:

“Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.”

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; 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.”

Then the Lord will be zealous for His land, and pity His people.

“And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions” (NKJV).

This is a continuation of a previous article: What is Revival Anyway?: A Simple Definition. What does it mean to say that revival is ‘God visiting his church’? After all, He is always with us and all Christians are suppose to be a ‘Temple of the Holy Spirit’ with his presence dwelling within, right? So what is so different about ‘God visiting his church’?

One of the Scriptures that has always affected me greatly is the call of Isaiah in Is. 6. Isaiah up to that time had probably lived in or close to King Uzziah’s court since he wrote the book on the King (I Chron. 26:22). He had probably been in the Temple many times and felt the presence of the Lord, but that day was different for Isaiah, God visited his temple and specifically visited Isaiah and everything changed after that.

You say: ‘well that was ‘Old Testament’ what does that have to do with us? Besides that was God commissioning a prophet, something special and unique.’ Answer: I believe that God is going to visit his church in a unique way and call his entire church to be his prophetic voice to a culture and people in need of repentance.

You ask: ‘What does entire church mean?’ Answer: the entire ‘Body of Christ’- Protestant, Orthodox, Charismatic, Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican, Reform, Baptist, Evangelical and every other faithful group you can name or Christian denomination you can think of. Many will respond and some won’t, but for sure it should be interesting and controversial.

Now back to ‘God visiting his church’, what does that mean and really look like? We can always look at revivals in the past and read about how God has visited his church before. However, there always seems to be something different or unique about each visitation and revival.

An article in the March 2007 issue of Charisma Magazine (now in the archives) by Robert Heidler and Chuck Pierce is full of good insight about what it means for God to visit his church: “Watch for the Next Great Awakening”. Read the whole article, it is tremendous!

In their article, Heidler and Pierce identify three levels of God’s presence found in the Bible and find revival in the third category:

God’s omnipresence. When we speak of God’s omnipresence, we mean that God is present everywhere. No matter where you go, He is there.

God’s indwelling presence. When you trusted Jesus, the Holy Spirit came to live inside you. If you know Jesus, the Spirit of God is present in you in a way that is different from His general presence everywhere.

God’s manifest presence. God’s manifest presence becomes apparent when God reveals Himself in a given time and place in a way that is discernable to your physical senses. God is always here, but we don’t always discern Him. When God manifests His presence, He makes His presence known in a tangible way.

When God manifests His presence to His church corporately, we call it revival. Revival is the glory of God coming into His temple.

Many of us have experienced God’s presence in church services and conferences and yet no one would claim that it was revival. The changes to many leaders who experienced the renewal at Toronto were tremendous and are still affecting the church, yet it did not really touch society as a whole in North America.

So what makes true Revival different? I believe that it is a matter of degree. When you read about ‘The Great Awakening’ in America’, the presence of God filled the church and brought repentance that spilled out into the street. When Charles Finney walked into a factory in 19th century New York, God’s manifest presence came in with him, the work stopped, people repented, the whole city was changed, and 500,000 came to Christ. When revival came to Wales it was said by children:

“Don’t you know? Jesus lives here now!”

What we are talking about when we say that revival is ‘God visiting His church’ is a manifest presence of the Lord that is life changing for everyone present. A tangible presence that brings repentance, healing, and anointing that flows with every member out the back door of the church and touches families, neighborhoods, cities, and entire cultures and nations.

We have already seen several leaders fall. I believe that now is the time to get our churches in order, particularly leaders. Some seem to think that is the enemy who is exposing leaders and embarrassing the church. However, I actually believe it is a work of God to purify his people and to prepare them for revival.

Will the church need to change before revival comes or will revival come first and bring change? It could be a case of choosing to change now or having to change later and maybe suffering loss.

I received the following from Charisma Online: Streams of Revival, May 8, 2007-Archives. It is a prophetic message from Matt Sorger. It is right on target:

The sifting is not over. There is more sifting that is coming into the church. “Tell My people not to be shaken when they see the shaking happening. There is a sifting hand of God going through the corporate body of Christ right now.” Either you can let God sift you in private or you can let Him sift you in public. The choice is yours.

The season of mixture is over. There are things that God and His mercy have tolerated for a season. But that tolerance has reached its end. We are coming into a season during which we can’t play games anymore. We can’t play with sin–and still expect to see the world won for Jesus Christ. We can’t tolerate inward things in our hearts.

There is no more time for the spirit of tolerance of the spirit of this age. We are coming into a season during which God is going to pour out His power. Either you will be ready for it or you won’t be. That season is just upon us.

Comments:

Over the last few years I have read a number of articles and research papers which claim that Christians live and look no different than their non-believing neighbors. I don’t believe that that is entirely true; however, the ‘spirit of the age’ does seem to have entered into the church on a number of fronts. Will the church need to change before revival comes or will revival come first and bring change? Either way, change is on the horizon and leaders need to be in the forefront.

Years ago when I was in seminary, one day in class we were studying Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. No one there was impressed with Edwards’ work. The professor made fun of it. One of the seminarians suggested that if he preached it at his church the head pastor would fire him for sure. None of us could figure out how the sermon became so influential and could launch any kind of ‘Great Awakening’.

If reading the sermon does nothing for you, read the accounts of those in the congregation that day. When Jonathan Edwards was preaching ‘Hell Fire’, those in the pews say that their feet were dangling over the fires of hell and they were actually experiencing it: heat, smoke, and feelings of complete hopelessness and terror. The alter call was particularly popular that day.

I have read all sorts of modern ‘psychological’ explanations of what really happened there. I’ll tell you what really happened -God showed up!

Most of the time during the Welsh Revival they didn’t even have sermons as such. They sang and prayed & God was there in their midst and everyone knew it.

Why did hundreds of people crowd into a barn on Azusa Street in LA? Believe me there were plenty of fine stone and brick churches downtown that had plenty of room; but the Spirit of God was in the barn.

When people talk about revival they talk about all the stuff that happens. Cities and nations changed, people healed, thousands coming to Christ. Bars closing, police with nothing to do, society and culture overhauled.

Bill Johnson Pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California in an article- “Ignite the Fire” (Charisma Mag. March 2007) talks about living in a ‘Revival culture’ with the expectation that God is already there. In regards to revival he says:

“(Revival is) happening, It’s just on a small scale. People are asking for something to happen that’s already been released, and you have to cooperate with what he’s already given.”

In another article- “Watch for the Next Great Awakening” in the same issue, Robert Heidler & Chuck Pierce define ‘Revival’as:

“God visiting His Church”

It is true that God is really always there with us, however when God visits His church in a special way, everyone knows it.

A Continuation -read the previous article first: “Revival Among the Muslims -Part I: 6 Million a Year Coming to Christ”

We left off talking about how incredible it was that 6 million Muslims are said to be coming to Christ every year. Sheikh Katani was sounding the alarm on an Al-Jazeerah interview.

As great as that sounds, I am actually looking for more than 100 million Muslims to be converted from every Muslim nation. Now that sounds nearly impossible. Nevertheless, our God is God and our Lord is Lord over all. Even over the principalities and powers of Islam.

Shortly after 9/11/01, I had one of the clearest and most incredible experiences that I have ever had with the Lord. I was sitting in my easy chair watching the aftermath coverage on TV one evening, and I was casually asking the Lord why he allowed such a tragedy to happen to our nation, and I was wondering about the future.

The next thing I knew I was in the midst of an open vision.

 

I was on a hill overlooking an ancient city with an army circling the walls. Then the trumpets blew and the walls and the gate at the front of the city came a tumbling down and the army advanced into the city to conquer.

 

Then the voice of the Lord spoke to me, He was standing behind me: Do you know what you are seeing?

 

I said: Yes, It’s Jericho.

 

Then the Lord said: No. It’s Islam. The prince of Islam has exceeded his authority. Soon there will be a new crusade, not a crusade of spears and swords, but of the Sword of the Spirit, of healing and miracles, of signs and wonders;

 

and 100 million Muslims are going to come to Christ as the firstfruits.

When I was back in my easy chair I started thinking about 100 million and how impossible that seemed. Yet that was only supposed to be the ‘firstfruits’ of the harvest?

Does this mean that 100 million Muslims are going to come to Christ, but that is just the beginning of a greater harvest? Wow. I believe that is the message of the vision. Praise God!

As with any spiritual gift, one should always use discernment and I submit this message to you with that qualification and understanding.

According to an interview on Al-Jazeerah with Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani, over 6 million Muslims are being converted to Christianity in Africa every year. 6 million sounds like a lot, but I’m looking for a major revival that touches every Muslim nation and brings 100 million to Christ.

One Hundred million Muslims converting to Christianity sounds rather improbable doesn’t it. After all, most Muslim countries are closed to missions and many do not allow conversions from Islam. I know how it sounds; I have been living with this idea for over five years now and have only dared to mention it publicly on two occasions. Yet that word and figure came to me in one of the clearest and most incredible experiences that I have ever had with the Lord.
One hundred million is such a large number considering the circumstances and my faith for it is so inadequate, yet I have continued to pray and look for the beginning of major revival among the Muslims. Nearly five years passed before I began to see the seeds of revival. In the last year, evidence for the beginning of a Muslim revival finally began to sprout to the surface:

In July 2006 I read an incredible report from Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries in Mozambique quoted on The Revival Blog. It told of Healing, miracles, and hundreds of Muslims coming to Christ. My hope stirred within me.

Later that month I read an article in the July issue of Charisma Magazine: “Uganda’s Miracle” by Kyalo Nguku. It tells about a major move of God in the Southern part of Uganda, Africa. In the 1970’s, Idi Amin murdered between 300,000-500,000 people in an attempt to convert the nation to Islam. In response, God raised up Christian leaders who began a movement of intercession and a ministry of healing and miracles. Today, the move of God is reaching into the highest levels of the Ugandan government, the church is growing at a phenomenal rate, and Muslims are beginning to come to Christ. What a reversal.

Then in August and September there were two articles in Charisma Magazine that gave me real hope for a greater Muslim revival. First article was “The Muslim Who Heard God’s Voice” (August 2006), the story of Evangelist Christopher Alam. I believe that soon God will be calling out 1000’s of Muslims like Alam, in miraculous ways, to bring revival among their people.

The second article was “Storm In The Desert” (Sept. 2006). It started out this way: “More Muslims have come to Christ in the last two decades than in all of history. God is orchestrating a profound miracle in our generation.” The article went on to say that over 522,000 had been converted to Christ. That seemed incredible at the time and a real boost to my faith.

Then over the last weekend in February (2007), I read two posts which really do seem to confirm the beginning of major revival among the Muslims. First I received the following article from Charisma+online by J. Lee Grady, from his Fire In My Bones column (To read the article go to Archives at the top and click down to: 02-23-07 “A Radical New Sound in Indonesia“).

According to Grady, more than 60,000 churches have been planted in Indonesia in recent years. Also, Christians in 500 cities in the country have organized prayer altars where believers will storm heaven for a national revival. All of this is happening in the largest Muslim country in the world.

Then I visited the Revival Blog and found the You Tube Al-Jazeerah’s interview with Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani, the president of The Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya. He claimed that in Africa, every hour 667 Muslims converted to Christianity. That everyday Islam lost 16,000 Muslims, and every year over 6 million Muslims were coming to Christ. The video ended with a long line of Africans being baptized in a river by Heidi Baker. Praise God, what an incredible video. (Note: The video only lasts a few minutes, well worth seeing)
So the Muslim revival is beginning in Africa and Asia, but I believe that it will spread to every Muslim nation and people. The Gospel will be preached in a major way to every Muslim nation, even in places like Saudi Arabia where it is illegal. 6 million a year is a great start but I believe that there is more to come. …To be Continued…

I have recently listened to several different radio interviews featuring Sam Harris (author of: The End of Faith & A Letter to a Christian Nation) and Richard Dawkins (God Delusion) who are agressively opposing religion and calling for greater controls and ultimate suppression. They particularly favor outlawing religious education of children referring to it as “brainwashing” and a form of “child abuse”.

Fortunately, even the main stream media is currently challenging some of their radical perspectives. An article in February 2007 Christianity Today entiled: The New Intolerance documents some of this opposition.

Yesterday I was thinking about this particular article and said to myself that it will all be put to rest when true Revival shows up and thousands of people start getting healed. I was truly surprised with an impression that came back immediately into my mind:

No these people will even be more threatened with an active Spirit filled church. Particularly when some of their colleagues are converted. When it comes to healing, they will support ‘scientific’ experiments to demonstrate and prove that healing is merely a natural latent ability that some humans have. The opposition in the demonic realm will be more than happy to help out in the ‘research’. Wo!!

Today I was thinking about Revival, and it occurred to me that others from the entertainment industry, business leaders, educators, politicians, and quite a few religious ‘leaders’ will probably end up opposing any Revival because of all the changes it will bring to our society on a diverse number of levels. Well it is just a thought, can’t imagine folks preferring the dead old cultural church that prevails today.

In addition to the blog posts mentioned in Part I, this article was largely inspired by a message given by Steve Thompson (Director of MorningStar Ministries) who recently ministered at VCC-Laguna Niguel (12/8-10). He talked about how jealousy continues to divide Christian ministers, ministries, and churches. He said that this is similar to the reaction of Cain to the favor that God showered upon his brother Abel.

He linked it to why ‘small Revivals’ seldom grow into large nation shaking events. He said that they usually get short circuited by the enemy who sows jealousy, division, delusion, and falsehood. However, Steve Thompson spent the majority of the time talking about the solution. His conclusions: Ministers and leaders need to learn to rejoice when others are blessed or receive a greater impartation and anointing. We all need to learn to agree with what the Father is doing and seek to be in tune with the heart of God.

His teaching continued: When we are in tune with what the Father is doing and rejoice when others receive, then the way is clear for us to receive also, possibly even a greater blessing. When we have some difficulty with the blessings and anointings that the Father gives to others, then the blessings that God intends for us may be delayed or blocked.

Also, the ‘judgment principle’ kicks in when we question why God is blessing others who seem to us to be less deserving. Then the Lord is obligated to judge us by the same measurement (Matt. 7:1-2). However, if we rejoice in the Father’s mercy and grace towards others, then we may be eligible to receive the same.

My conclusions (at least for now): We can’t do this by ourselves, it requires greater intimacy with the Father and only his Spirit can give us the necessary discernment. If we try to do it on our own and try to train and discipline ourselves to rejoice when others receive, it could degenerate into witchcraft. We could end up rejoicing in order to receive. It’s probably why Cain’s offering didn’t receive favor from God. He was probably giving in order to receive, rather than giving in the spirit of true worship. That’s probably why he was so angry when Abel received favor from God instead. Things would have turned out different if he had rejoiced with his brother.

I believe that there is a trap that Christians fall into here. We can be so intent upon receiving greater anointing from God individually and for our own church that we sometimes ignore what the Father is doing with others if it doesn’t involve us. Greater Revival is a corporate body of Christ deal which requires lots of folk to cooperate not only with what the Father is doing in their own lives and churches, but also be engaged with what God is doing in the lives of others, and be sensitive to what the Spirit is doing across the entire Body of Christ.

I believe that this is why the Holy Spirit is touching so many prophetic folk right now to talk about seeking greater intimacy with the Father. I believe that the Lord would like to open up the heavens soon and bring a Revival that will shake the nations. However, greater intimacy with God will be increasingly essential in order to properly support the move and to make the changes and continual adjustments necessary in order to keep it expanding and growing.

One of the dirty little secrets which seem to prevail and continue to divide Christian ministers, ministries, and churches is jealousy (or call it whatever else you want). This is actually similar to the reaction of Cain to the favor of God showered upon his brother Abel. Cain probably taught his younger brother everything he knew and yet Abel ends up with the greater blessing from God? We all know how that episode turned out. Christians are usually far more subtle and most would not even consider their reactions as jealousy.

It usually starts out with one minister asking God to bless his ministry as much as another that he has observed. Maybe there is another church in town that is growing fast and you wonder why. This is not necessarily bad, unless one begins to covet the anointing and position of another. There can be a fine line between seeking the best gifts and anointings that our Father has for us, possibly being mentored by one who moves in those giftings, and actually being jealous (or sad) when someone else receives a greater impartation than we have or gets ‘promoted’ before we do.

I started thinking about this issue after reading an earlier article which references a group and a blog which spends an incredible amount of time and energy opposing a successful minister and mega church in my own neighborhood (I can see the church from my house). A ministry which has brought hundreds and maybe even thousands to Christ and has a good reputation in the community. It is definitely not a Revival but the ‘opposition’ modus operandi is similar.

It all reminded me of a time 18-20 years ago while I was attending VCF Anaheim, John Wimber was the Pastor, the place was rocking and the Spirit was moving in a dramatic way. Maybe it wasn’t Revival but it was close, and it was definitely a move of God. Then along came the self-appointed ‘heresy hunters’, next the opposition pamphlets and books. I attended every service and conference and could never figure out where they picked up those ‘heretical’ quotes. It certainly didn’t represent anything that I had ever heard or experienced.

Now, If Revival falls on a place and every one in town begins to show up, the other churches begin to wonder why it happened at ‘that’ place. Then many conclude that if ‘true’ revival was going to show up in this city it would naturally start here in ‘our’ church, after all we are the one with the: (add whatever) 24 hour prayer room, anointed Bible study, larger church facility, preacher w/ a doctors degree-that guy didn’t even go to Bible college, sound doctrine, healing ministry, after all, that church is part of that..(add+denomination, group, movement, or whatever) and etc. Finally, all too many church leaders end up saying something like this: “There must be something wrong with what’s going on over there–it’s way too popular–must be false. We will have to check it out and ‘protect’ our people.”

Mean while, it was the Lord’s intention to bring Revival to the whole city and to every church, and then spread it to the next town, but it gets short-circuited by our attitudes and responses. We all should be rejoicing when Revival falls anywhere and get on board. Instead we let the enemy divide us and actually use ‘the Revival’ as the excuse. Remember, Revival is always messy, never perfect, usually different than the last move, and then the enemy always adds his own stuff to the mix.

One wonders what Toronto would be like today if every church in the city had gotten on board and road it out. Would Florida be the same if everyone cooperated in Pensacola? I experienced some of the Toronto move. I could tell you all about what the enemy sowed there but won’t. Praise God, you can still see the effects of that little move world wide, I can still see it effecting the lives and ministries of hundreds of folk that I know.

This article is already way too long for a blog post. We’ll hold over the rest of our thoughts for the next. Part 2 -will feature some further observations and conclusions that were inspired by a message given by Steve Thompson (Director of MorningStar Ministries) who ministered last weekend at VCC-Laguna Niguel.