Killing the Messenger

I met with a friend the other day for lunch. He's a good man with plenty of God-given vision for the Kingdom, but he's discouraged.

My friend is discouraged for many of the same reasons I discuss in posts here at Cerulean Sanctum. He sees the problems in the American Church today, but rather than dwelling on them, he works toward solutions. He loves the Church and wants only the best for Her, yet he's had a rough time finding a place that will appreciate his talents. Instead, he's found a lot of the business world in the Church, where people in leadership positions, when confronted with problems, would rather let innocent underlings die by the sword than to be responsible men and fall on it themselves.

As I listened to my friend, it struck me how alike we are in what we see and understand. It's like we were thinking the exact same thoughts at the exact same time. I found myself nodding my head the second he opened his mouth to talk about an issue because I knew precisely what he was going to say; I would have said it that same way, too.

The difference between the two of us is that my friend is still actively pursuing a life in the ministry. I, on the other hand, tired of the gamesmanship, the unwillingness to look beyond the ordinary, and the perpetual confrontations with people lacking vision, got out.

I don't say that with any malice toward any one person or any single church. The cumulative barrage is what hurts over time, particularly for those people who by God's design are the square pegs in the round holes.

Not too long ago, I interviewed for a pastoral position at a respected church. The pastor was clearly a man who pushed the envelope and was wholly unsatisfied with the status quo. I didn't agree with every move he made, but you could tell he was on the right iconoclastic path. Sadly, during my first interview, I realized his board did not share the same vision.

When asked how I defined "spiritual growth", I made the mis-step of defining my view by opening with what it was so obviously not: keisters in seats. On this, the pastor and I wholeheartedly agreed. Someone forgot to clue the board in, though. The laser death beams that drilled about two dozen holes in me revealed the truth. To the board, it was ALL about packing 'em in.

Same planet, different worlds.

I really don't know how those folks get in positions of power in our American churches, but somehow they do. You can stamp folks like that out of a mold, put a certain regional dialect on their lips, and plop them in church leadership roles around the country—sometimes I think that's how they're made, devilishly manufactured in secret government cloning tubs in a lab outside Poughkeepsie.

For those godly people who have a better vision, the small-minded are everywhere. More often than not, they're standing in the way, doing everything they can to secure their own kingdom at the expense of the bigger Kingdom.

But what to do?

My friend and I were on the same path at one time, but broken and battered, I got off. Am I happy with that decision? Not really. It leads to the inevitable question of what might have been. But then I see my friend, a man wholly sold out to God, and I see the utter discouragement on his face and I wonder. More than anything I pray that some church that hasn't been infiltrated by small kingdom people will recognize the goldmine, will see the prophet, and turn him loose to do the thing that God so desires to do through him.

You can't peer into the holy depths of a Jeremiah and know every emotion of his every day. Who understood him except God? Who consoled him except his Creator? To not seek the approval of men is to exact a cost that too few of us are willing to pay. Certainly small-minded, small kingdom people can't understand that cost.

More than anything else, I pray that God would blow those small kingdomites off their perch, like a carpenter blows sawdust off his work. I've seen too many godly people shot down in flames, not because they were wrong, but because they were so excruciatingly right about problems and the solutions needed to fix them that no one could tolerate their correctness.

Opposition from the world is to be expected. But opposition from the Church? That's a sting no anesthetic will soothe.

Today, I'm sad for my friend. I wonder why so many good people suffer at the hands of the very people they seek to serve.

Hmm. Sounds achingly familiar, doesn't it?

{Image: The Stoning of Stephen by Pietro da Cortona}

Leonard Ravenhill

Matt Self over at The Gad(d)about, besides having the common sense to pick drums over all other musical instruments, also has the brains to quote Leonard Ravenhill. Good for Matt. The American Church needs to hear more Ravenhill.

If you haven’t been around Cerulean Sanctum very long, you’ll get to know Ravenhill soon enough. He and A.W. Tozer are the “patron saints” of this blog. No one in the last century wrote blistering words like Tozer and no one preached with more fire than Ravenhill. That they were friends in real life is the icing on the cake.

I don’t do a lot of imploring on this blog, but if you’ve never heard Ravenhill preach, I implore you to go to SermonIndex.net and check out the Ravenhill section at this link (with videos at this link).

Ravenhill was more than a preacher, though; he may have been the last true English-speaking revivalist with roots that went back to the Welsh Revival. He passed away in 1994, and one of the greatest losses in my own life is that I mismarked a calendar and missed him preaching at a local church. He passed away not too long afterward.

Yet he lives on in his teaching tapes, and most of them are incendiary. Not only did Ravenhill handle the Scriptures in a way unmatched today, but he could draw parallels and bring two disparate Biblical concepts together like no other preacher I’ve ever heard. He not only knew the ins and outs of the Bible, but hundreds of hymns, too. Best of all, he had a solid understanding of how the charismata work today. He was the total package. Listening to him is so convicting I find it hard not to keep from rending my clothes and pouring ashes on myself. If you want to know that “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” may have sounded like to Jonathan Edwards’ listeners, check out few of the highest-rated Ravenhill sermons on SermonIndex.net, especially those before he was slowed by a stroke in the mid-1980s.

God knows that we need another like him to rouse the Church in 2006.

And though it’s a shame to limit the breadth of Leonard Ravenhill’s wisdom to a few zingers, I’ll end with some of his more pithy statements:

The only time you can really say that ‘Christ is all I need’ is when Christ is all you have.
If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.
A popular evangelist reaches your emotions. A true prophet reaches your conscience.
The last words of Jesus to the church (in Revelation) were ‘Repent!’
A true shepherd leads the way. He does not merely point the way.
Your doctrine can be as straight as a gun barrel…and just as empty!
John the Baptist never performed any miracles; yet, he was greater than any of the Old Testament prophets.
I doubt that more than two percent of professing Christians in the United States are truly born again.
Our God is a consuming fire. He consumes pride, lust, materialism, and other sin.
There are only two kinds of persons: those dead in sin and those dead to sin.
[Concerning the darkness that has enveloped most of Christendom:] When you’re sitting in a dark room, you can either sit and curse the darkness, or you can light a candle.
Children can tell you what Channel 7 says, but not what Matthew 7 says.
Some women will spend 30 minutes to an hour preparing for church externally (putting on special clothes and makeup, etc.). What would happen if we all spent the same amount of time preparing internally for church, with prayer and meditation?
Maturity comes from obedience, not necessarily from age.
What good does it do to speak in tongues on Sunday if you have been using your tongue during the week to curse and gossip?
The Bible is either absolute or it’s obsolete.
Why do we expect to be better treated in this world than Jesus was?
Today’s church wants to be raptured from responsibility.
Testimonies are wonderful. But so often our lives don’t fit our testimonies.
[Concerning one of the new movements in the church that was causing a stir among Christians:] There’s also a stir when the circus comes to town.
My main ambition in life is to be on the Devil’s most wanted list.
You can’t develop character by reading books. You develop it from conflict.
When there’s something in the Bible that churches don’t like, they call it ‘legalism.’
We can’t serve God by proxy.
We must do what we can do for God before He will give us the power to do what we can’t do.
There’s a difference between changing your opinion and changing your lifestyle.
Our seminaries today are turning out dead men.
How can you pull down strongholds of Satan if you don’t even have the strength to turn off your TV?
Everyone recognizes that Stephen was Spirit-filled when he was performing wonders. Yet, he was just as Spirit-filled when he was being stoned to death.
If a Christian is not having tribulation in the world, there’s something wrong!
[Concerning the fixation that today’s church has with numbers, with growth at any price:] The church has paid a terrible price for statistics!
Any method of evangelism will work if God is in it.
Church unity comes from corporate humility.
You can have all of your doctrines right, yet still not have the presence of God.
Many pastors criticize me for taking the Gospel so seriously. But do they really think that on Judgment Day Christ will chastise me, saying, ‘Leonard, you took Me too seriously’?
You can know a lot about the atonement and yet receive no benefit from it.
If the whole church goes off into deception, that will in no way excuse us for not following Christ.
You never have to advertise a fire. Everyone comes running when there’s a fire. Likewise, if your church is on fire, you will not have to advertise it. The community will already know it.

Overflowing

Today is Pentecost, the birth of the Church and the fruition of the Old Testament prophecy of Joel declaring that the Spirit of God would personally indwell men and women.

El Greco's Pentecost How sad then that the Holy Spirit is barely a presence at all in our meetings or in American believers in general.

Yesterday, I wrote to a faithful reader of this blog about my experiences in camping ministry. Ruminating further on what I wrote her, I want to literally and figuratively talk about two camps. I'll let you decide which one was more Spirit-filled and had a more effective ministry.

The camp in Southern Wisconsin had everything that an Evangelical camp could want—multi-million dollar budget, national recognition, much-copied programming, an enormous staff filled with well-known names in camping, and superior food and accommodations. They had all the right doctrinal stances and perfect theology. The director of the camp was also the sitting director of Christian Camping International.

The camping program in Southern Ohio had a minute fraction of that money and was part of a Mainline denomination that had been losing members to churches like the one that supervised the Evangelical camp. They didn't own their own campgrounds and the camping program was largely funded by one church. There was no national recognition and the leaders, while respected, weren't being asked to speak at Christian Camping International conventions.

The Wisconsin camp was a stickler for rules, even those that made it hard for summer staff members to attend church on Sundays. The camp didn't provide for the spiritual needs of the staff, going so far as to oppose a volunteer, staff-run, mid-week church meeting (organized by yours truly.) Year-round staff made it clear to summer staff that they were just there for a few weeks and the camp really didn't belong to them in the same way that it did for the resident year-rounders. Resident staff almost never let summer staff into their homes.

The Ohio camp made every allowance for the spiritual lives of staff. When leadership saw that the staff was getting tired, they poured their lives back into the staff and made certain that each staff person was getting fed by the Lord. Although many of the summer staff were not local, almost everyone on staff decided to attend the sponsoring church and time was made for staff to attend church and even enjoy fellowshipping afterwards. People from the church housed the staff in their own homes when camp was not actually in session. Relationships were forged for a lifetime.

The Wisconsin camp believed that God came first, campers came second, and staff came third. The Ohio camp believed that God came first, staff came second, and campers came third.

The Wisconsin camp poured out their staff until they were bone-dry and used-up. The Ohio camp got their staffers into the waterfall of the Holy Spirit and let them minister out of the overflow.

By summer's end, the Wisconsin camp staff had nothing more to give, while the Ohio camp staff was still ready to serve. The staff of the Wisconsin camp limped out of camp with long faces and few tears. The Ohio camp staff walked away empowered for service, and there were long farewells and many tears. Many of the people from the Ohio camp are still friends almost twenty years later.

I tell the tale of those two camps because today's Church in America falls into the same two camps. Our ministry is either a pouring out of people until there is nothing left to give or it happens out of the overflow of the hearts of people filled with the Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, I believe that too much of our ministry today is taking what little of the Spirit of God is in those ministering and pouring Him out until people are dessicated.

A simple look around the United States will reveal the following:

1. We have more seminarians than ever and yet people are starving for good preaching.
2. More people have taken evangelism courses than ever and yet there is no revival in this country.
3. We have more books on Christian topics than ever, yet the ignorance of the Word of God is growing.
4. We have more Christian conferences and seminars than ever, and yet the world around us thinks Christians have nothing to offer.
5. We have snazzier, more consumer-oriented programming in our mega-mall-churches than ever before and yet every poll shows more and more people staying away from our churches.

Folks, we cannot do this by our own strength and yet that is all we seem to offer people. Is it any surprise that people stuck in this kind of dry, manmade Christianity are bored and restless? And for those who labor within those congregations, should we scratch our heads when they burn out and go elsewhere?

There is no substitute for the Spirit of God! We cannot build Christ's Church by any other means than by His Spirit! Our programming won't do it, our happy faces won't do it, our seminaries won't do it, our bookstores won't do it. Nothing builds the Church but the Spirit. We're wasting our efforts and wasting God's time if we think otherwise.

I've said here before that you never have to advertise a fire. If each believer in Jesus was filled to the brim until they overflowed with the Spirit we'd have people begging us to know what our secret is! We'd sit down on a plane and the people in the seats next to us would be clamoring to know how it was possible that they could actually sense our contentment and inner joy. Anyone who is empty would want a piece of Who we have!

I wish that everyone who reads this blog will take time today to read the entire Book of Acts in one sitting. Read it all the way through—your translation doesn't matter. Just read it. Now ask yourself if what you read there bears any resemblance to your own experience. If not, then why not?

The simple answer is that we are not serious about ministering out of the power of the Holy Spirit. But can I tell you something? You will burn yourself to a cinder of you minister to others in the way that most of you have been taught. But if you minister out of the overflow of the Holy Spirit, ministry becomes so effortless that you'll wonder why you wasted so much of your sweat trying to do it by your own strength!

My favorite passage in the Bible is Acts 4:23-31:

When [Peter and John] were released [from prison], they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. (24) And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, "Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, (25) who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, "'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? (26) The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed'— (27) for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, (28) to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. (29) And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, (30) while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." (31) And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Did you catch that last verse? The place they were in was shaken! When was the last time that the Holy Spirit showed up so powerfully on Sunday morning or Wednesday night that your gathering place was shaken? Or how about you? When was the last time the Spirit go so ahold of you so fully that you were shaken? Those folks in that place already had the Holy Spirit in them since it was a gathering of believers, but look how God filled them to overflowing. And notice what follows from that massive empowering of the Spirit: the people went out filled with the Spirit, ministering the word of God boldly out of that overflow of their hearts! Do you think that they could NOT talk about the Lord after being filled like that? They didn't go out timidly, nor by whipping themselves into an emotional frenzy, nor by whatever they'd learned in a two day Evangelism Explosion session, but they went out in the utter confidence of the Holy Spirit! How could they NOT impact their environs if God Himself was dwelling in them so richly?

You can't buy the Holy Spirit; people have tried unsuccessfully (Acts 8:18-24.) The only way we can experience that filling is to humbly repent of our sins, travail before the Lord in prayer (and I don't mean for five minutes, either), praise His Holy Name by the Spirit already living in us, and wholly offer up our lives as a living sacrifice to Christ—our spiritual worship. We also need to surround ourselves with others who have the same single-minded devotion to Christ. And lastly, we need to be around mature Christians who have tasted the Lord in His fullness. They know what is possible and they believe, even when others don't.

The Lord never intended us to live any other way than overflowing with His Spirit. His promise in Joel was not half-hearted; He promised radical lives, radically changed, and radically equipped by Him to radically speak to shattered people in a shattered world. He alone makes this happen. And no matter how hard we try to manufacture results, without Him we can do nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Now do we believe that?

{Image: "Pentecost" by El Greco, 1600. One of my favorite artists.}