Everybody Wants Reformation......but who's willing to let "goods and kindred go?"

An Encore Presentation

A earnest plea for a day of prayer and fasting.
No fanfare; no programs; no religious leaders jockeying for media attention; no K-Street e-spin; no DVD's or MP3's to profit from; no books to promote; no CD's to sell; no reformation contests to judge; no personality focused better life agendas to publicize, etc. Just simply God's people taking leave of themselves and from the duties of their daily lives to humbly seek the Lord and His Word (read Isaiah 58) to bring revival, repentance, and reform to His church once again.

We need a new Reformation today beloved; we need another Great Awakening!

"O Christian, never be proud of things that are so transient, injurious, and uncertain as the riches of this evil world! But set your heart on the true and durable riches of grace in Christ Jesus." -ISAAC AMBROSE

TO A BAND OF BEREANS
October 31st is Reformation Day--the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door at Wittenberg calling a recalcitrant Roman church away from the gross sin of indulgences for legal tender to recapturing the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Today's evangelicalism needs another Reformation--a genuine move of God among His people that calls and returns His believers back to biblical Christianity and the gospel of sola fide once again.

A friend of mine yesterday (Brian H.) made an interesting comment in jest when talking about shopping--he said, "impulse buying is good; it always leads to happiness." Now, a part from the obvious hedonism of those words, here is where they strangely apply and ring true on the wanton state in evangelicalism today. Some foolishly promote the assertions that:

• Impulse faith is good; it always leads to a more happy life.
• Impulse contextualization of the gospel message is good, because it always leads to better and more effective evangelism.
• Impulse secular ownership of Christian music and publishing companies (Word, Sparrow, Zondervan, Thomas Nelson, etc.) is good, because it always leads to more market exposure to mainstream audiences, which means more opportunity for the gospel to be heard.
• Impulse Emerging Church Movements are good, because it always means that we can be "relevant and sensible" to seekers who don't know Jesus--by appealing to them through pragmatic tactics which result in significant church growth.
• Impulse Evangelical Co-Belligerence is good, because real morality and family values are sequestered through legislation not regeneration; and with an important election around the corner in our nation, nothing could be more important to deal with the ills plaguing our society than to Christianize the political process through turning the church into a religious PAC or lobbyist group.

What is the solution beloved to this plight?

"OPEN HEAVEN LORD": BRING REFORMATION, REVIVAL AND REPENTANCE TO YOUR CHURCH AGAIN
Beloved, this October 31st let's set out sights heavenward and off our own self-absorbed concerns and ministries to seek the Lord for another Reformation to sweep through His church once again.

Why don't we use our blogs, radio programs, websites, email lists, etc. on October 31st to lovingly, with brokenness, bathed in contrition, but yet with a holy boldness to sound the alarm and make a clarion call for true reformation to come to HIs church once again?
 
Would others that read COT here be willing to commit October 31st as a day of fasting and prayer and humbly ask the Lord Jesus to sovereignly move among His people by His Holy Spirit to revive us, cleanse us, reform us, and embolden us to proclaim His gospel of grace to lost souls right where we live?

 Wouldn't it be tremendous beloved, to be a spectator of God's grace, hear from heaven, and see yet another Great Awakening in our day if the Lord would make it so? It is time to "plow up the fallow ground" and entreat God to revive His people in such a time as this.

Listen to these powerful words from an uncompromised voice of his day. Unlike today's evangelical leaders, he was not for sale and couldn't be manipulated by pragmatic allurements for the advancement of his own name, fame or financial increase. If he were alive today, he would never be found putting his own name on a Bible, charging for the ministry, courting political powers, being part of the cultural chatter of the day, or taking the easy road. Oh for men of God like this to rise up from the ashes of evangelicalism who "do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24).

POUNDING ON WITTENBERG'S DOOR
“Everybody admires Luther! Yes, yes; but you do not want any one else to do the same today.

When you go to the Zoological Gardens you all admire the bear; but how would you like a bear at home, or a bear wandering loose about the street? You tell me that it would be unbearable and no doubt you are right. So, we admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago; the past ages are a sort of bear-pit or iron cage for him; but narrow-minded bigot, or give him a worse name if you can think of one.

Yet imagine that in those ages past, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and their composers had said, ‘The world is out of order; but if we try to set it right we shall only make a great row, and get ourselves into disgrace. Let us go to our chambers, put on our night-caps, and sleep over the bad times, and perhaps when we wake up things will have grown better.’ Such conduct on their part would have entailed upon us a heritage of error. Age after age would have gone down into the infernal deeps, and the pestiferous bogs of error would have swallowed all. These men loved the faith and the name of Jesus too well to see them trampled on. Note what we owe them, and let us pay to our sons the debt we owe our fathers. It is today as it was in the Reformers’ days.

Decision is needed.

Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day? We who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it. The faith I hold bears upon it marks of the blood of my ancestors. Shall I deny their faith, for which they left their native land to sojourn here? Shall I deny their faith, for which they left their native land to sojourn here? Shall we cast away the treasure which was handed to us through the bars of prisons, or came to us charred with the flames of Smithfield?….An ancestry of lovers of the faith ought to be a great plea with us to abide by the Lord God of our fathers, and the faith in which they lived.

As for me, I must hold the old gospel: I can do no other.... It is today as I was in the Reformers’ days. Decision is needed. Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day? We who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it…. Look you, sirs, there are ages to come. If the lord does not speedily appear, there will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to his truth today. We have come to a turning-point in the road. If we turn to the right, mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to his Word. I charge you, not only by your ancestry, but by your posterity, that you seek to win the commendation of your Master, that though you dwell where Satan’s seat is, you yet hold fast his name, and do not deny his faith.

God grant us faithfulness, for the sake of the souls around us! How is the world to be saved if the church is false to her Lord? How are we to lift the masses if our fulcrum is removed? If our gospel is uncertain, what remains but increasing misery and despair? Stand fast, my beloved, in the name of God! I, your brother in Christ, entreat You to abide in the truth. Quit yourselves like men, be strong. The Lord sustain you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.” -C.H.S.

A SOLEMN CALL FOR REVIVAL...break up your fallow ground for it is the time to seek the Lord, that He may come and rain righteousness upon you

by Rick Frueh from the Cot Combox

We have constructed our own evangelical tower of Babel which in the end leads nowhere. We have mixed the holy with the profane. We have become a wild ass, running and frolicking without any restraint. We have jumped the fences of the Lord and we are grazing in the pastures of the heathen.

We dine at Hollywood's trough on Saturday night and lift up dirty hands on Sunday. Our church buildings are our glory and our prayer closets are our shame. We worry about the economy but sleep well while souls perish. We make celebrities of preachers and show disdain for praying grandmothers.

We herald politicians and refuse to preach Christ on the street. We criticize lost sinners but speak well of the harlot church. We have become prisoners of America's hedonism and yet we proclaim we are free.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: We are in desperate need of a massive and church shaking revival that breaks our earthen vessels...

And Lord Jesus, let it begin with each of us today.

WHY REVIVAL TARRIES...because the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, the glory of God and the Lord Jesus Christ are not being reverenced

Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; 

break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, 

that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

-Hosea 10:12

John Gill says this on this verse above:

Sow to yourselves in righteousness…

Not the seed of grace, which bad men have not, and cannot saw it; and which good men need not, it being sown in them already, and remaining; rather the seed of the word, which should be laid up in their hearts, dwell richly in them, and be kept and retained by them; though it is best of all to understand it of works of righteousness; as sowing to the flesh is doing the works of the flesh, or carnal and sinful acts; so sowing "unto righteousness", as it may be rendered, is doing works of righteousness; living soberly and righteously; doing works according to the word of righteousness, from good principles, and with good views, with a view to the glory of God: and which will be "sowing to themselves", turn to their own account; for though such works are not profitable to God, as to merit anything at his hands; yet they are not only profitable to others, but to those that do them; for though not "for", yet "in keeping" the commands of God there is "great reward", (Psalms 19:11) . Reap in mercy; or "according to mercy" not according to the merit of works, for there is none in them; but according to the mercy of God, to which all blessings, temporal, spiritual, and eternaL, are owing; and such who sow to the Spirit, or spiritual things, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting; not as the reward of debt, but of grace; not as of merit, but as owing to the mercy of Christ, (Galatians 6:9) (Jude 1:21);

break up your fallow ground;

that is, of their hearts; which were like ground unopened, unbroken, not filled and manured, nor sown with seed, but overrun with weeds and thistles; and so were they, hard and impenitent, destitute of grace, and full of sin and wickedness, and stood in need of being renewed in the spirit of their minds; which this exhortation is designed to convince them of, and to stir them up to make use of proper methods of obtaining it, through the efficacious grace of God; see (Jeremiah 4:5) ; 

for [it is] time to seek the Lord: 

for his grace; as the husbandman seeks, prays, and waits for rain, when he has tilled his ground, and sowed his seed, to water it, and make it fruitful, that he may have a good reaping time, a plentiful harvest; and as there is a time to seek for the one, so for the other: 

till he come and rain righteousness upon you;

that is, Christ, whose coming is as the rain, (Hosea 6:3) (Psalms 72:6) ; and who, when he should come, whether personally by his incarnation, or spiritually by his gracious presence, would rain a plentiful rain of the doctrines of grace, and the blessings of it, such as peace pardon, righteousness, and eternal life by him; particularly the justifying righteousness wrought out by him, which is fully manifested in the Gospel, the ministration of that righteousness, and is applied unto, and put upon, all them that believe: or "till he come and teach you righteousness"; as Christ did when come; he taught the word of righteousness in general, and the righteousness of God in particular, and directed men to seek it; declared he came to fulfil all righteousness, and taught men to believe in him for it, and that he is their righteousness, and the end of the law for it; as well as he taught them to live righteously and godly; see (Joel 2:23).

Now that would be a sign of genuine revival beloved!  

Is this what is happening in Lakeland, FL?  Is that what we are seeing on God.tv night and day?  Is this what the leadership of that "outpouring" are calling people to do?  With a heavy and burdened heart - no it is not.

Biblical revival cannot be organized,

cannot be subsidized, and cannot by advertised.

As my late colaborer in Christ, Leonard Ravenhill, used to say,

"Whatever else we say about revival we have to recognize this,

that revival is an act of mercy in the sovereignty of God."  Amen.

So why does revival still tarry in Florida? Here are a few reasons:

• There is little or no conviction and contrition over sin
• The focus is on hollow miracles not repentance of sin
• The objective is physical healing (which they cannot do), not holiness
• It is led and manufactured by men, and not sovereignly led by God
• It is not marked by a holy season of unrelenting solemn prayer
• There is very little preaching or exposition of God's Word
• There is very little proclamation of the gospel of justification by faith alone (if at all)
• It is not marked by brokenness and humility, but by hilarity and silliness
• And the result is not the glory of God or the exaltation of Christ, or being filled with the Holy Spirit - it is the fame of man.
  

Consider Psalm 2:11:

Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.

Notice two things in regards to biblical worship: 

1. We are to serve the Lord with fear - that is, with reverence, divine respect.  We are not to come to Him in a casual, cavalier way - in any manner we so choose.  We are to serve Him with reverence. Literally, as the Psalmist would say, in the beauty of holiness. 

2. We are to rejoice - there should be celebration, praise, adoration and joy in the presence of the Lord.  But notice, it is to be marked with trembling. Our celebration should never be marked by carnality.

But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.

-Isaiah 66:2b

Again, notice the Lord's emphasis on trembling.

When was the last time that one of these so-called revivals broke it that it was marked by worship, reverence, godly fear, trembling at His Word and before Him?  This is absolutely necessary; for genuine heaven sent revival is God's people getting right with God.  It is to plow up the fallow ground, to repent of sin, to come before the Lord in brokenness and contrition, humbly seeking His forgiveness and restoration.  It is driven by a passion for His glory and love of His Word.  It is bathed in tears and evidenced in holiness with a recovery of gospel centered proclamation and a harvest of souls by God's sovereign grace and electing love.

"What God wants is not to fill up empty pews.
He is not concerned about filling empty churches,
He is concerned about filling empty hearts.
And empty lives, and empty eyes that have no vision;
Empty hearts that have no passion,
And empty wills that have no purpose."
-Leonard Ravenhill

If measured by these things, what is happening in Lakeland, FL is not revival - it is a show, a carnival, entertainment, a sham.  Now, are there sincere people coming there looking for revival or seeking a miracle in their lives?  I am certain.  But you don't need to go to Lakeland for that do you?  You can right now in the quietness of your home get things right with the Lord.  You can confess unrepentant sin to Him; you can read His Word and pray out of brokenness and contrition to be restored in your walk with Him if you have been in the far country for a season.  If you are hurting, burdened, and troubled in your life - He knows this already.  Find your rest and comfort not in an event, find it in Him alone.  Cast your cares on Him for He cares for you.  Call your pastors and have them pray with you. Contact a few others in your church and begin to meet regularly in small group home fellowships with each other. And may Sunday not be just an hour you go to once a week, but a genuine time to be worship the Lord in spirit and in truth and to be equipped to do the work of the ministry.

Is revival taking place in Lakeland?  No.  But it needs to after what has been taking place there and the foolishness they are doing in the name of the Lord.  If you want to go to Lakeland go to call them to repentance and away from the chaff of their own maginations and moorings.

I close with these powerful words of Spurgeon on Psalm 2:11-12:

"Serve the Lord with fear;" 

let reverence and humility be mingled with your service. He is a great God, and ye are but puny creatures; bend ye, therefore, in lowly worship, and let a filial fear mingle with all your obedience to the great Father of the Ages. 

"Rejoice with trembling,"—

There must ever be a holy fear mixed with the Christian's joy. This is a sacred compound, yielding a sweet smell, and we must see to it that we burn no other upon the altar. Fear, without joy, is torment; and joy, without holy fear, would be presumption. Mark the solemn argument for reconciliation and obedience. It is an awful thing to perish in the midst of sin, in the very way of rebellion; and yet how easily could his wrath destroy us suddenly. It needs not that his anger should be heated seven times hotter; let the fuel kindle but a little, and we are consumed. O sinner! Take heed of the terrors of the Lord; for "our God is a consuming fire."

Note the benediction with which the Psalm closes:—

"Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." 

Have we a share in this blessedness? Do we trust in him? Our faith may be slender as a spider's thread; but if it be real, we are in our measure blessed. The more we trust, the more fully shall we know this blessedness. We may therefore close the Psalm with the prayer of the apostles:—"Lord, increase our faith."