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Reviving Struggling Churches Rev 2: 1 – 11 Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 08 Jun, 2008 |
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REVIVAL IS absolutely necessary for the churches. I don’t want to let this subject go until it is well under our belts, in our minds and, most vitally, in our hearts. In our Wednesday night prayer times, we were looking at the messages to the churches in Revelation as revival messages. We won’t study all the churches of Revelation, but just two, so we get the flavour. These two churches are very different. One needs revival, the other needs reassurance. There is a vast difference, though some churches need both. I occasionally visit the Assemblies of God church up at Petersham. It is great fun, they have good music, and the sermons are usually quite thoughtful and very evangelistic. They have a word of prophecy in the service, and I am fascinated that, on each occasion when I went there, the word of prophecy has been much the same. It is a message that God loves them, that they have nothing to fear, and he will look after them. It’s sad: a church so big, with so many resources, and so keenly evangelistic is so in need of reassurance. And why does God have to keep telling them the same thing? Aren’t they listening? Smith Wigglesworth was preaching on healing. A woman stood in the line–up for prayer. “Didn’t I see you here last night?” he asked. “Yes, I was here,” said the woman. “Get out!” roared Wigglesworth. “When you pray for something, accept it by faith. Jesus told us not to use vain repetitions. So you go away and use your faith and get out of the way of people who need prayer!” He was onto something. Listen to what God says to our church in the situation we are in, and then accept that word by faith, act on it by faith and go ahead expectantly. Won’t a prayer–answering God provide?
The need for revival The church in Ephesus was in need of revival. The key words here are, REV 2:4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! This is a church which is cold–hearted. But don’t think that this is an entirely bad church. Jesus has already described its good points, He says, 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. In many respects it is a church like our own. We have worked hard for many years. We kept at it when things were tough. We struggled with difficult people, both inside and outside. I don’t want to dwell on the inside thing too much. Most of us know about it. But a young woman who was, I’m sure, demonised, was coming here for a time. When she was being very disruptive and I prayed that Satan would be defeated, she stopped coming. A man came here who was picking on vulnerable people and trying to recruit them for a hyper calvinist movement in this area: if I hadn’t stopped him, he could have split us like a couple of other Baptist churches in the area. Another young fellow came who used to meet people as they came to church and take them off to other churches. I had to confront him quite sharply over that. We have had our struggles. And we have endured hardship as a church. For many years I worked at below the recommended stipend. For quite a time, Neph and Divina basically made up my stipend because we weren’t receiving enough in offerings. We have endured working with minimal numbers and without a full–time pastor, without even a pastor working reasonable part–time hours. For a period we were just forgotten by our fellow Baptists. But we have endured and we have survived. In many ways we are like the Ephesian Church. They tested the destructive people and struggled agaist them. They faced hardships. They kept going when things were tough. But none of these things outweighs the fact that it has lost its first love. When I was in Theological College, our Church History lecturer was telling us about Baptists at the time of the outbreak of the Wesleyan Revivals. The Baptists at this time were in two camps. The Calvinistic Particular Baptists were theologically orthodox. They believed in the trinity. They believed in the virgin birth. They believed that Jesus died for us and for our salvation, and that he rose again victorious over sin and death. But they didn’t believe in evangelism. One old pastor told William Carey, the missionary, “When it pleases God to save the heathen, he will do it without your help or mine!” They were orthodox but where was the love? Where was passion for the gospel? On the other hand, the General Baptists, who were not Calvinists, questioned or even denied the trinity. To them, Jesus was a man and nothing more. They saw his death as a martyrdom. They were uncertain about his resurrection. They were missionary, but only in a sense of trying to convince other Christians to come to their side. Our lecturer said, “Which is better? To be coldly orthodox and dead, or to be warmly heretical and dead?” There isn’t much to choose between them, is there? But what about us? How do we shape up against those criteria? Do we still have our first love? Jesus doesn’t say, “You have lost your first love for me.” He just says You have forsaken your first love. What does John says in his epistle? If we can’t love our brother whom we can see, then neither can we truly love God, whom we can’t see. The love they should have is gone. And, though we have many good things going for us, and though we are friendly and we pray for the sick and so on, do we love as God plans for us to love? A pastor friend of mine says that, if you frighten people into the Kingdom with threats of hell, their fears are relieved once they are saved, and they will drift away; but if you love them into the Kingdom, they will stay because we all need love. I don’t think any of us tries to frighten people into the Kingdom, but we should ask why they like us and then go away anyway. The church in Ephesus is a church needing revival. It needs to return to life.
The need for encouragement Even Ephesus needed encouragement — it was just not the primary need. On the other hand, encouragement was exactly what Smyrna needed. Jesus tells them, 9 I know your afflictions and your poverty — yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. He doesn’t hide the truth from them. They are facing a tough time. Not that they haven’t been facing a tough time already. They have afflictions. That means that for some reason they have been suffering. They have poverty, which not only means that they don’t have ready cash, but it means that their lack of resources has disadvantaged them. In the New Testament, poor always carries the meaning of powerless. In our western way of thinking we divorce the idea of poverty from the idea of powerlessness. So we can’t grasp how poverty robs people of the power to get out of the trap they are in. Jesus knows the Smyrna Christians are suffering and cash–strapped and powerless. But he sees it from heaven’s perspective. He sees it from the perspective of the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the wealth in every mine. I wonder: are we so good at praying for the sick because we are not very good at praying for the unsaved or for the resources we need, or for a true revival? These are the wealth we need, and James says, You don’t have because you don’t ask. Well, we do ask, but we don’t persevere. We don’t keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, until we are answered and given what we need and let into where we should be. Perhaps we need to hear Jesus’ words — don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer. Change can bring suffering, or suffering will bring about change. Is there some activity you like, but you know it is incompatible with your becoming the Christian person God really planned for you to be? You may be afraid of the grief you will suffer to change that activity. Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer! Is there someone you really need to confront if you are to become free to grow? Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer! Do you need to confront yourself and change if you are to become free to grow? Well, don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer! These Christians in Smyrna were facing a bunch of Jews who did not show any of the compassion and caring that Jews are supposed to show. They were bitterly opposed to these Christians and would do anything they could to stop them. Jesus calls them a synagogue of satan. There are churches like that, too. They started out right, but they have become hard and bitter, and they blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and they persecute Christians who try to keep the focus on Christ or who allow the Holy Spirit to work in their midst, or who truly change in their obedience to Christ. Several years ago, when there was talk about closing down several inner suburban churches, I contacted Leichhardt and a few other churches to talk about the impact of the proposals. They were happy enough to talk. Then I contacted the pastor of another Baptist Church which could have been affected, and he basically told me that he didn’t care what happened to the rest of us: he was OK, and we were heretics because we didn’t see things his way in every detail. I don’t suppose he persecuted us, but there was no love. Does that sound like a demonised church? Such things happen. But don’t be afraid of rejection by those who reject Christ!
Conclusions for both churches Jesus tells the Ephesians, REV 2:7 [...] To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. and he tells the Smyrnans, Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. REV 2:11 [...] He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death. The cold church hears the promise of life; the frightened church hears the promise of victory. I want to conclude by speaking to us all as a church needing both messages. We need revival. We need to return to our first love, to be refilled with the Holy Spirit, to find renewed courage in the face of hardship. Jesus promises the blessings of fruitfulness to those who get spiritually right, and the blessings of victory over death and hell to those who endure and don’t let fear overtake them. When I first came here, on 4 February 1984, I didn’t preach the induction sermon. Greg Beckenham did that. But I did choose the hymns, and one I chose was for a very special reason. It was Charles Wesley’s great hymn, O. Thou who camest from above. It has these words: O, thou who camest from above, It sums up very well my intentions here at this church. I came wanting revival for the church, and I mean to see it through, if God is pleased to deliver revival to us. Repeatedly through the years since then I have returned to the themes of revival. Revival is about people who follow Jesus’ word when he says, 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. We might need a great deal of encouragement and reassurance. The church at Smyrna did. But that is not revival. Revival starts when we recognise how far we are from where God wants us to be. It continues when we turn from wrong paths. It is sustained when we do the things we once did. Revival is about a body of Christian people acknowledging their need, turning from sin and failure back to the living Christ, and getting back to being the people of God once more in all that they do. It means Jesus first. It means that we recognise all that his death means for us, how a loving God reached out to us in the midst of our fallen and lost condition. As we saw in today’s issue of Ultimate, we love because he first loved us. So when Jesus tells the church in Ephesus that they have lost their first love, it means that they no longer dwell on his love in shedding his blood for our salvation. They have lost their vision of the cross. They have ceased to understand how the murder of an innocent man sets them free for this life and the next. And that is the path we are heading down, and it is a progress we must halt — today, while there is time. An old evangelist criticised a young leader of revival for not giving people time enough to consider whether or not they would respond. The revivalist said, “Isn’t that strange. The Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice...’ The devil says, ‘Tomorrow.’ And Evangelist Jones says, ‘A week or two will be fine.’” Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts... It is a word of scripture to which we must all pay attention, because today is the only day we can be sure of, to respond when Jesus calls, “Come back to me and receive life.” |
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© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.) |
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