Ch
15: Revival Begins
We
did a great deal of praying. We had this new personal zeal for God,
and we were trying to open every part of our lives to the Holy
Spirit.
Sue
had run a ladies Bible study in Morwell using a book that was popular
then What Happens When Women Pray and saw an opening for one
at Kooweerup. A group of women there of all ages seemed keen to grow
in their faith. A couple of them were already very mature Christians
although they went about their service of God without any fuss and
without drawing attention to themselves.
So
this group got under-way. Sue was expecting God back up the message
about his son Jesus by giving demonstrable answers to prayer. God
did.
The
ladies would all nominate particular situations – usually family
matters – for the group to pray about. One lady asked for prayer
that her daughter who was childless might conceive. So the group
prayed about this and God answered their prayers: the daughter became
pregnant. The woman instead of being overjoyed revealed a further
problem. Her daughter – who lived in another state – had indeed
been told by doctors that she could not become pregnant because of a
medical condition. But that was not the full story. She had also been
told that even if she did become pregnant, there was a very high risk
that the baby would be deformed. So the ladies prayed about this
also.
We
underestimate God continually. One salutary story I remember from
college days was this: One of our friends, whose husband was in my
college year suffered terribly from Crones disease. Praying one day,
God said to her: “If you ask me I will heal you of the Crones.”
She replied: “but even if you do – the steroids I take for the
Crones are masking … (I can't remember the name of the additional
condition).” To which God replied: “Naturally I would heal that
too!” She was healed. She stopped taking the steroids and there was
no sign of the other condition surfacing. God healed completely just
as he had said!
So
Sue's Koo-wee-rup ladies prayed for the next problem. In due course a
healthy baby was born to the daughter.
This
and other answers to their prayers did much to build the faith of
these ladies. There is, however a sad ending to this particular
miracle. You recall how Jesus found when he was on earth that even
when people saw the miraculous signs which were God's way of
confirming that Jesus was indeed his beloved Son, not all believed.
You remember in the Ten Lepers story – all were healed – only one
came back to thank Jesus! So even now, even when God does do miracles
to confirm the message that Jesus is risen from the dead and is Lord
of all, not all believe. Some proudly turn away from him.
In
this case although the faith most of this group of ladies was
strengthened by God's answers to their prayers, not all believed. The
lady who had asked them to pray for her daughter – even though what
God did was medically beyond reasonable hope, put it down to
“coincidence”. After all God did, she chose to close her heart
against Jesus. Naturally having made her choice she gradually drifted
away from the group who were devoting themselves to the teaching
about Jesus and growing in their relationship with him through his
Holy Spirit..
Exciting
things started to happen in Lang Lang too.
One
day a lady telephoned me to say that her father had just died and she
wanted to make funeral arrangements. This is unusual for people
outside the immediate congregation. The fact is that generally the
first a minister hears about a bereavement is from the undertaker –
who has already seen the family and made the arrangements. In country
towns with a good local undertaker this does have an up-side. Our
local undertaker always gave me a sort of “situation report”.
What state the family was in. Who was related to or having a feud
with who. The family's attitude to religion, and so forth. Going to
see a previously unknown family in a state of grief was much easier
with this sort of preparation!
So
when Rosalie rang I talked a bit on the 'phone and made an
appointment to call on her. We organised the funeral service and I
talked conversationally about the things God had done in Sue's and my
life. The funeral came and went. A few days later Rosalie knocked on
my door and said: “I've decided to become a Christian – what do I
do next.”
God
had just given us our (well no, not 'ours' … his)
first convert from outside the church. I didn't know what to do!
Asking
her to come to church was an obvious “No!” With one exception she
was about half the age of the youngest of the congregation. Also
spiritual and welcoming temperature of the church was still sub-zero.
What Sue and I hit on was to ask to her hang out with us and learn
apprentice style.
She
hung out, so to speak, talked with Sue and me about Christian things,
saw how we lived our lives as Jesus' followers, and how we dealt with
the problems of everyday family life.
This
developed into a way of growing baby Christians.
You
recall how Jesus told Nicodemus “You must be born again!” It
seemed to us that as people decided to put their faith in Jesus as
their Saviour and to commit to obey him as Lord they were the
spiritual equivalent of new-born babies. They needed what babies
need: Food. Warmth. Protection. Socialisation.
In
new Testament times the local Christian congregation provided these –
plus apostles like Paul protecting and nurturing a whole number of
congregations and their ministers.
At
Lang Lang this was not the case. Sending a new Christian to church
would have been like throwing a newborn out into a blizzard! God
helped us find ways around this problem! When, in the mercy of God we
see revival in this country this will likely be a widespread problem,
so in coming posts I will further describe the solutions which we
found worked.
Excursus
on my grief at the present state of churches
The reason I believe the poor
spiritual state of congregations will be a problem when revival comes
is this:
It is a plain fact of history that “the church”
became corrupted in the decades after Jesus died and rose from the
dead just as in the Old Testament times its equivalent did.
There is this constant refrain running through the Old
Testament to this effect: “the priests are only in it for what they
can get out of it, the official prophets are making it all up so they
can stay in a job and when God sends real prophets they kill them!”
Ultimately when God sends his own beloved Son, it is the religious
establishment who oppose him and demand his death!
Church history paints a bleak
picture of organised religion.
By the grace of God the light of the truth as it is in
Christ Jesus was indeed handed on from generation to generation down
to us, but at many times the light burned very dimly!
During my own lifetime the size of congregations of
mainline churches in Australia (and many other western countries) has
dwindled. As a proportion of the population the number of regular
church attenders has plummeted! These are facts no one seriously
disputes.
The “why” is a matter of debate. The conclusion I am
now coming to believe is this: Every
generation needs its own
revival and reformation. I am of what they call the post WWII
“baby-boomer” generation and just too young to remember the Billy
Graham revival that swept the English speaking world. Our generation
has resisted revival. We have let the fire of faith burn down to
embers.
My theory is that even among religious professionals –
priests, bishops, theologians and the like there has been a loss of
belief in the reality of God, the power of Jesus to save, the moral
right of Jesus to command our obedience, and the reality of
everlasting judgement: that some will rise to eternal life; others
will rise to hear their doom.
This loss of vision of God's reality has left a
spiritual vacuum. Consciously or unconsciously we Christians, “the
Church” have looked for something other than God to fill this
vacuum.
I have recently been re-reading Exodus. While Moses is
up on the mountain talking to God the people of Israel lost their
vision of God's reality amazingly fast. Within weeks they said to
Aaron: “We don't know what has happened to this fellow Moses who
led us out of Egypt; make some gods for us...” So Aaron makes a
golden calf and announces: “Here are your gods that led you out of
Egypt”
So my generation lost its vision of the reality of God
and looked for some convenient “golden calves” to fill its place.
We have worshipped every “...ism” that came along.
My former denomination, the “Uniting Church” took up socialism,
pacifism and aboriginal rights-ism. The Anglican church that I am now
part of was slower to fall away by a couple of decades. However it
followed a similar course and added feminism, multiculturalism and
environmentalism climatechange-ism and assylum-seeker-rights-ism to
the list of things it has become passionate about instead of the one
true God.
Today political activism has
replaced proclamation of salvation and new life in Christ.
One way and another, the problem of churches being so
dysfunctional that they would either turn away or kill the faith of
any new believer who joined them is still with us. Hopefully the
solutions we found at Lang Lang may help in the future.
Next
Post: Schools and Miracles
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