God has a purpose and intent to save His people. God has a purpose and intent to glorify His Name. God has a purpose and intent to fulfill all the promises of God. [For more information see “The Purposes & Intent for Salvation” (chapter 25, section 2).] But these purposes and intentions go unfilled… why? Perhaps it is because the wrath of God which went forth to breach the promises of God was never seen, and to God’s people, therefore, it was never DECLARED! This is because the saints are taught it does not even exist, and the results: intercessory employments are utterly abandoned, and the people, wallowing in lukewarmness, await a work from “A Sovereign God” that never comes. God help us! God help us! We are so terribly deceived!
The Need for Revival = breaches of damnable degree
“Revival Praying” is Intercession (standing in the gap)
“Revival Praying” is Intercession (standing in the gap)
Let us look straight on at such acknowledgements! When a promise is breached, intercession begins: Certain sins committed cause an outbreak of wrath, wrath is made possible by a breach of promise pertaining to salvific-love, intercessors are prophetically alerted of the danger so that they, seeing the breach, leap into the gap to stand in between wrath and its subjects of fury, and then by some Spirit-empowered argument, including any necessary saint-executed or God-executed judgment, wrath is pacified. It is certain that revivals have taken place, but what was the burden? What said the Spirit of God? What said the Spirit-filled preachers?
Revival Preaching – what burden?
When breaches of God’s promises are made, God’s intercessors and preachers are alerted, just as the former paragraph explained. When the Spirit of God moves upon men the burden of revival is communicated, even if the doctrine of revival is not entirely understood or scripturally developed in their mind…thus they have the heart of revival. Because revival is written upon the tablet of their heart, they experience revelatory apprehensions of the biblical reality as it pertains to their present circumstance: therefore they feel, think, pray, and preach revival burdens, even without understanding the implications of what they preach.
The Need for and Arrival of REVIVAL is…
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Hyperlinked Explanations
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The Need: Zion is full of breaches.
The Arrival: Zion’s breaches are filled |
The Need: The Bride of Christ is spotted, blemished, unholy, and wrinkled.
The Arrival: The Bride of Christ is made clean, pure, holy, and beautified. |
The Need: God’s people are fast asleep in spiritual darkness.
The Arrival: God’s people wake up by a move of the Spirit of God, and henceforth during this experience, they cannot go back to sleep. |
The Need: God’s people don’t have clean hands and a pure heart, thus they cannot ascend the hill of the Lord to dwell in His glorious presence.
The Arrival: When God steps down and descends, because God’s people have clean hands and a pure heart, thereby enabled to dwell on Zion’s holy hill. |
The Need: (1) It is when God’s true people (regenerated individuals) are spiritually dead, and they need to be made alive again! (2) It is when God’s people are lukewarm and stupefied, as an animal lives ignorant of earth’s most precious treasures, only now, in this case, God’s people live irrelevant of the most valuable experience of grace - God’s treasure of Revival-Glory.
The Arrival: God’s people are made alive again and quickened, so that they are no longer stupefied and incognizant of God’s glory, yea, rather, they are in hot-pursuit of it and communion in it! |
I have labored for the most part of this document to come to one, terrifying conclusion: that what we call “revival” is actually, for the most part, salvation, and because we think that it is not an eternity-changing experience, the fact of its absence men hardly remember! A spiritual holocaust is going on right before our eyes! The Divine-plagues and Divine-curses of God have been assailing the Churches of God for so long, and yet regenerated men cannot be brought to acknowledge it! In the name of a theological system men bless themselves, not understanding the implications of their theological conclusions… thus like chaff in the wind we are, for the most part, carried away with the allurements of a damnable sort! God help us to wake up! Before it is too late! Lest we are surprised to find the Gate of Christ’s Kingdom locked shut, and ourselves thrust out, because we blessed ourselves in our hearts in the name of TULIP, saying, “No evil shall come upon me”. Let us acknowledge the awful reality: these revival-less conditions which these men of God did cry out against (the Scott’s Worthies calling for the filling of breaches, Ravenhill for a spotless Bride, Paisley for an awakening from sleep, Campbell for clean hands and a pure heart, and Spurgeon for the end of lukewarmness), are all, still now, the NEED of the hour! And if we do not respond to God by recognizing the grave implications of such revival-less conditions (i.e. damnation), that which was meant to be temporary and remedial can become permanent and everlasting! When sheer desire for revival will not compel us into its pursuit, the jealous wrath of God will move us onward; yea, lest it turn into an unquenchable fury! I beg you to reckon with these things, my reader, before it is too late! [And for a closer look at the means by which godly men were moved to repentance when “fallen”, see The Damnable Abuse & Misapplication of Sovereign Election (chapter 14).] Oh God help us! It is true! "We end up blaming God's sovereignty for the sad state of the church. If there is no revival in the church, we can be very sure that the lack is on our part and not God's!" -Al Whittinghill
My brethren, “the Calvinists”, I plead with you to answer this question: when will you be brought to the humble agreement with “our part” or “our responsibility”, as it is written to us by Holy Scripture!? - “Our part”, I say, in the circumstances of damnation sweeping across the world of 7 billion heathen men! - “Our part”, I say, regarding the desperate situation in which the Church of God does presently exist (in the treachery of adultery and friendliness with worldliness)? Oh, when will we wake up!? Like the mariner, the doctor, and the fireman, when will we be brought to reckon “our part”? “Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you DAMNED?” – Leonard Ravenhill. Such words are compelling, naturally speaking, because the mariner, the doctor, and the fireman are convinced of death’s near proximity upon needy souls, but my brethren, “the Calvinists”, you cannot be brought to look upon the spiritual scenery with the honesty of our God-given responsibility! “Awake to righteousness and sin not”, oh Calvinists, for the Midnight hour is hastening upon us! “Having done all to stand”, will you prepare for “the Evil Day” (Eph. 6:13)? Or will you neglect God’s word and bury your talent in the dirt?
My brethren, “the Calvinists”, I plead with you to answer this question: when will you be brought to the humble agreement with “our part” or “our responsibility”, as it is written to us by Holy Scripture!? - “Our part”, I say, in the circumstances of damnation sweeping across the world of 7 billion heathen men! - “Our part”, I say, regarding the desperate situation in which the Church of God does presently exist (in the treachery of adultery and friendliness with worldliness)? Oh, when will we wake up!? Like the mariner, the doctor, and the fireman, when will we be brought to reckon “our part”? “Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you DAMNED?” – Leonard Ravenhill. Such words are compelling, naturally speaking, because the mariner, the doctor, and the fireman are convinced of death’s near proximity upon needy souls, but my brethren, “the Calvinists”, you cannot be brought to look upon the spiritual scenery with the honesty of our God-given responsibility! “Awake to righteousness and sin not”, oh Calvinists, for the Midnight hour is hastening upon us! “Having done all to stand”, will you prepare for “the Evil Day” (Eph. 6:13)? Or will you neglect God’s word and bury your talent in the dirt?
“Give us of your oil; for our Lamps are gone out!” – Matthew 25:8
Hearken ye saints, dressed in white, as priests you need “oil for the light” (Ex. 25:6).
Fill up your lamps, dress them right……………………you will need them at midnight!
Suddenly awake, hearing “the Cry”, you will be oil-filled to alertness and ready to wait.
Made ready, by light awake, you will be welcomed when you stand before the King’s Gate.
But others with you, hearing “the Cry”, will be encumbered with foolishness…not knowing why.
These are the virgins, destined to die, who awoke in a flurry to answer “the Cry”.
Running to the wise, and shouting, “Our lamps are gone out!” But by the wise, denied!
Oh my soul! They have no oil, no light in their eyes! They left off preparations until the hour was too nigh!
Hearken ye saints, dressed in white, as priests you need “oil for the light” (Ex. 25:6).
Fill up your lamps, dress them right……………………you will need them at midnight!
Suddenly awake, hearing “the Cry”, you will be oil-filled to alertness and ready to wait.
Made ready, by light awake, you will be welcomed when you stand before the King’s Gate.
But others with you, hearing “the Cry”, will be encumbered with foolishness…not knowing why.
These are the virgins, destined to die, who awoke in a flurry to answer “the Cry”.
Running to the wise, and shouting, “Our lamps are gone out!” But by the wise, denied!
Oh my soul! They have no oil, no light in their eyes! They left off preparations until the hour was too nigh!
Aaron dresses the Lampstands to maintain the perfection of their flame, and so by this attendance, they shine with a radiance worthy of God’s Presence. Likewise, the Lamp of the holy place, whose flame was never to expire, demonstrates the never-dimming light of God’s Presence. Christ dresses the New Testament candlesticks so that they shine, but if their flame fails they will be removed from God’s House. The knowledge of God is an inexhaustible lamp, even so, humans who are filled-with-God never cease to shine, but when the lamp goes out (personally or corporately) it is because God’s glory departed (1 Sam. 3:3, 4:21-22, Ezek. 10:18-22, 11:22-25)! This Lamp… once burning with oils of holy-scent, once radiant with life-giving Light, has now expired! My reader, do you remember when the flame was strong and bright… and then you saw it dim? Oh, why did you stand still and watch it dim? It turned sickly before your very eyes! It flickered long for its very life! And your soul – slowly encroached upon by darkness, became relaxed, unable to awake to righteousness, now lax, accustomed to the congregation-wide insincerity – Oh, my reader! Your soul lost its vital reality with God! You became comfortable with Christianity without Christ! Your eyes, long adjusted to the dimming Light, were long-prepared for the blackness of darkness… and when it came, deception taking its course, you felt as though you could still see. Oh, my reader! “Knowest not that thou art blind” (Rev. 3:17)!? Oh, my soul! Has the heart of Christianity faded from memory? Has the life-blood of the Church ceased to flow? Where are the rivers which once made the people glad (Ps. 46:4, Jn. 7:38)? Where is the heaven-happiness they once had? Meandering rivers give life and happiness to earth’s creatures, even so, the meandering veins of the Body, flowing with royal blood, quickens the people of God into heaven’s animation… but you, your Church – you are depressed and lethargic, life-less and dead! Oh my soul! “My people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof” (Jer. 5:31)?
“DEATH AND CONDEMNATION TO A CHURCH THAT IS NOT YEARNING AFTER THE SPIRIT, AND CRYING AND GROANING UNTIL THE SPIRIT HAS WROUGHT MIGHTILY IN HER MIDST. He is here; He has never gone back since He descended at Pentecost. He is often grieved and vexed, for He is peculiarly jealous and sensitive, and the one sin never forgiven has to do with His blessed Person; therefore let us be very tender towards Him, walk humbly before Him, wait on Him very earnestly, and resolve that there should be nothing knowingly continued which would prevent Him working in our midst.” – C.H. Spurgeon
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