REVIVAL: WHY DOES GOD WITHHOLD BLESSINGS FROM US?

Perhaps God withholds His blessings because we can’t handle them? To illustrate this, let me use the example of Holy Spirit revival. The Church is languishing. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why the Spirit shouldn’t breathe new life into His people, right?

After all, the great outpourings of the Spirit have brought incredible spiritual fruit, even transforming society. Here’s how one historian described the impact of the revival in Wales (1904):

·       Judges were presented with white gloves: they had no cases to try. No rapes, no robberies, no murders, no burglaries, no embezzlements, nothing. The District Consuls held emergency meetings to discuss what to do with the police, now that they were unemployed. Drunkenness was cut in half. The illegitimate birth rate dropped 44 percent in two counties within a year of the beginning of the revival. (The Rebirth of America, The Arthur S, DeMoss Foundation, 64)

Why then might God withhold such blessings? In Dynamics of Spiritual Life, Theologian Richard Lovelace has written:

·       Almost every major revival recorded, in fact, has been surrounded by an aura of irregular religious activity and has also been centrally affected by elements of weakness and sin. As a result, successive eras of church leaders have found it easy to immunize themselves and their followers against awakening movements by applying caricatures stressing the worst features of past revivals. (239)

In Untamed Christian Unleashed Church, Professor of Christian Formation, Terry Wardle, goes further about the dangers of revival. Even though he hungers for the movement of the Spirit, he has acknowledged its downside:

• What starts out as a fresh move of the Spirit ends in a confusing and unproductive free-for-all of unbiblical spiritual excess…There has also been more than a little immaturity evident in these movements, which has not always ended well for the people or congregations involved…Not all people or congregations who have “caught the fire” [of the Spirit] have survived the experience. Individual believers, and in some cases local churches…experience division and in some cases destruction. (152-53)

·       Some Christians, desperate to appear powerful, try to fake it…Others are reckless, failing to discern the difference between what is from God, what is of the flesh, and what is of the evil one. (126)   

• I have experienced Christians moving in gifts in the absence of love. It can be a real mess. Spiritual pride, showing off, self-righteousness, a critical spirit – it all shows up, and when it does, it’s nasty…In the end, far more people are hurt than helped. (142)

How can such evils have been associated with the glorious outpouring of the Spirit? Because of their many apparent abuses, some have tried to dismiss the revivals by denying the involvement of the Spirit. In 1743, Charles Chauncey issued Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England where the Great Revival had broken out. Lovelace summarizes his stance:

·       Chauncey felt that an unusually large number of those professing conversion were falling away from the faith soon afterward and that those who did not apostatize were puffed up with pride, contemptuous of the rest of the church including “unconverted” ministers, and full of spiritual intoxication leading to uncontrolled celebration and dependence on visions and trances. The order of the church was being broken up at every level. Worship services were chaotic, lay people were preaching and exhorting, and itinerant evangelists were invading other men’s parishes and undermining their pastoral authority. (242)

While acknowledging the truth of many of Chauncey’s charges, Lovelace explained that these extremes were natural for the immature Christian at their first profound encounter with the Spirit:

·       The seven deadly sins of the non-Christian have their spiritual counterparts within the growing Christian, as the gravitational field of self-centeredness seizes and bends the elements of the new life into old carnal patterns. New Christians may envy the spiritual gifts of others and covet them. They may become preoccupied with the emotional side effects of Christian experience and lapse into spiritual gluttony, lusting after joy and ignoring its giver and the responsibility of an obedient walk of faith. Wrath may find its counterpart in censorious judgment. But the most dangerous form of religious flesh is spiritual pride. (244-45)

Our Lord wants to give us the world and will not hold back any good thing from those who love Him. However, we lack the understanding and maturity to profitably receive His blessings. I had had an incredible encounter with Jesus when bleeding to death from a horrid chainsaw injury. Suddenly, I knew that I wasn’t alone, and that I would be safe, even if I died. I knew that God was there, that He loved me and would protect whatever the outcome. I was filled with ecstasy, knowing beyond a doubt that He, whoever He was, would deliver.

I was miraculously rescued. On the following day, my surgeon instructed me to exercise my wrist, which had almost been cut off, if I was to regain its use. However, after this encounter, I was convinced that this God was all-powerful, and, therefore, I concluded that I didn’t have to do anything with my wrist. Wrong! And I did lose some of its mobility.

Later, I reflected that my understanding of God was unable to fully grasp my experience and relationship with my Benefactor. I lacked the understanding to make the most out of my recovery. I couldn’t make proper use of this blessing.

However, this was the least of my problems. There was also spiritual pride, perhaps the worst seductress of all. About this danger of pride, the great American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, had written in defense of the Great Revival in response to Chauncey:

·       This is the main door by which the devil comes into the heart of those who are zealous for the advancement of religion…the chief source of all the mischief that he introduces to clog and hinder a work of God. (Thoughts on the Revival, 414)

Pride is self-exaltation, a magnifying of oneself at the expense of others. It also represents a hardening to whom we really are and the things of God. In essence, it claims, “I am worthy, more than others.” It is the opposite of love. Instead of being other-centered and God-centered, it is self-centered. Instead of drawing brothers together, it drives them apart, destroying the work of God.

It is particularly dangerous, because it poses as righteousness. Lovelace writes:

·       Pride magnifies the faults of other Christians…Under the guise of prophetic righteousness, pride can move awakened believers to censorious attacks on other Christians, a lack of meekness in rebuking those who really need it and a hair-trigger readiness to separate from those less holy or less orthodox. (246)

Instead, it is humility that honors God and not self. It brings brothers together, seeking to bless them. It understands that it is only by the grace of God that it can confidently walk. Edwards described humility in this way:

·       The eminently humble Christian is as it were clothed with lowliness, mildness, gentleness of spirit and behavior, and with a soft, sweet…deportment…Christian humility has no such thing as roughness, or contempt, or fierceness, or bitterness in its nature. (423)

Because our fleshly nature is always present and battles against the ideals of God (Galatians 5:17), we should not expect to be free from prideful impulses. Yet the mature Christian has the alert understanding to guard against pride’s cravings and deceptions. Consequently, we have to keep watch over these impulses:

·       Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life…Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Proverbs 4:23, 26)

However, the immature Christian lacks this understanding. Without it, they are particularly vulnerable to Satan’s wiles, especially when greatly blessed. Consequently, too much of a good thing is not good. This is why a writer of the Proverbs prays:

·       Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. (Proverbs 30:8-9)

Troubled by the condition of the Church, I still pray for revival. However, we must note that prayer is a vital ingredient. Prayer is an expression or our need and inability to meaningfully impact the Church or our society. It is a humble cry before the One who can change things. It cries, “Lord, have mercy upon us, who are helpless without you.” It is in opposition to pride and is fertile soil to receive blessing.

We need to accept the fact of our helpless, that we can do nothing without Him (John 15:4-5). It seems that only then will He come to our rescue:

·       This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them…When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. (Psalm 34:6-7, 17-19)