Date: 08-Jul-1994 12:26pm
EST
Subject: God's Restructuring
I'd just like to post a few reflections and/or observations.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I sent summaries of the news items on this list to 57 people who I thought would really benefit, or who would probably be very interested in what God is presently doing. Occasionally I get responses in the mail, asking me whether I believe that this is of God. In my answers, I state that I believe that it is of God, and that tremendous fruit is becoming manifest in the lives of the people who are touched by what is happening. I also point out that what has been happening conforms to just about all of the characteristics of revival that I have written about in my books and articles over the past decade or two. I have in my possession a huge notebook which has over 200 pages in it. Each page is devoted to a different characteristic of revival, and contains many historical examples of that one particular characteristic of revival. Over the course of twenty-three years of research, I have added to the notebook whenever I have encountered a description of a revival. The current move of God conforms to the vast majority of these characteristics of revival, but I should hasten to add that in no case has EVERY characteristic been evident, and in every case, there are always unique elements.
Some of the leaders of the current move of God prefer to refer to what is happening as a renewal, not a revival. This would be incorrect, in my opinion, based upon what I have observed to be the characteristics of revival over the centuries. Ironically, this hesitancy has caused some confusion in some quarters. I have received letters from people who were prepared to consider this a genuine move of God, but when they discovered that some of the leaders were referring to it as a renewal but not a revival, they balked, probably because they associated "renewal" with man's attempts to bring about spiritual awakening, while they thought of "revival" as a genuine move of God's Spirit.
I understand the concerns of the leaders. We have not seen a lot of evanglism or mass conversions. While these things have characterized many revivals, they have not characterized all of them. And in many cases, these things have taken place many, many months after the initial stages of a revival.
One characteristic that many revivals have had in common is what I would call God's restructuring. That is to say, when revival hits, man cannot control it, and an entirely new leadership is suddenly raised up by God within the church. Older leaders are sometimes raised up to greater prominence, while others seem to fade into obscurity (of course, obscurity can be a tremendous blessing from God, and prominence a terrible snare). Related to this is the fact that revival causes absolute chaos in regular church programs. In the third chapter of my book on the Latter Rain Revival of 1948 [by the way, Patti, that was the revival that spawned Bible Temple in Portland, Oregon and also Shiloh in San Francisco pastored by
Violet Kitely--you were wondering about this], I chose to open as follows:
"At the opening of the First World Pentecostal Conference in Zurich, Switzerland in 1947, general secretary David J. DuPlessis preached an address that ended with the following words:
There is nothing that can ever take the place of the Holy spirit in the church. Let us pray for a greater outpouring than ever, and remember when the floods come it will not keep to our well prepared channels but it will overflow and most probably cause chaos in our regular programs."
I believe that, already, this year's revival has been causing chaos of this kind in the regular programs of churches that have been affected, and this "problem" will probably increase in its effects.
I could go on discussing multitudes of characteristics of revival, and how they are now being fulfilled, but it would take up an enormous amount of space, and it would take a great deal of time, perhaps infintitely so!
Oh--Keith--you asked for a list of my publications. I've really been very remiss about this--I haven't really been keeping close track of them. Why don't you start with whatever I've mentioned on this list? I could list them if I spent a lot of time trying to compile them, but I don't have time to do that at present. Sorry--I hope you'll understand. A far as major books go, I think the only only I haven't mentioned so far is THE EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany Fellowship, 1977).
By the way, thank you so much for your responses to my question. I'm looking foward even to more input. Patti, I loved your analogy with respect to 3-D pictures. It appears as though God was sovereignly preparing you with that incident. Don't you love it when things like that happen? Increases in the frequency of such coincidences is another important characteristic of revival.
God bless every one of you!
Love,
Richard M. Riss RRISS@DREW.DREW.EDU