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DIFFERENCES IN
REFORMATION-RESTORATION-
REVIVAL-REVOLUTION?
Revival means
to bring life to what already exists. It is a new presentation of the old.
It is a renewed attention to or interest in something old. It is to give new
life and vigor to the old. It is to become active again.
Reformation means to amend, improve by change of form or removal
of faults or abuses of what presently exists. To put or change the old into
an improved form or condition. It is a modification of the old.
Revolution means a sudden, radical complete change in
organization. It is the overthrow or renunciation of any given system with
the intent of the substitution of another system. Restoration
means bringing back to the former, original position or condition. It is the
representation or reconstruction of the original.
Revival is good but not
always the best. It can bring blessing, healing, cleansing and a return to a
place of covenant blessing, but revival can fall short of true restoration.
A revival is not the highest purpose of God for the present day church.
Instead of revival, God is calling for radical and revolutionary
restoration. He intends to bring us back in these “last days” to the former,
original condition of the life of the New Testament church. God is making a
new wine skin of His church. It will yield His new kind of assembly and a
radical change of hearts of His people.
It is the fulfillment of the
prophecy of Joel which Peter quoted on the Day of Pentecost(Acts
2:15-21), “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel:
‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my
Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and
your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And
on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my
Spirit; and they shall prophesy; And I will shew wonders in heaven above,
and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: The
sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that
great and notable day of the Lord come: And it shall come to pass, that
whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in
Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and
in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.’ ”(Joel 2:28-32)
Also it is the fulfillment
of the prophecy of Amos quoted by James at the Jerusalem Conference(Acts
15:15-18), “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David
that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his
ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: That they may possess the
remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith
the Lord that doeth this. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the
plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth
seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall
build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards,
and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit
of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be
pushed up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy
God.”(Amos 9:11-15)
We need more than just a
revival. We need restoration, a new thing birthed of the Spirit, a new work,
a new wine skin at the expense of killing the old familiar goat. God does
not revive that which He desires to die. To have a new wine skin, the old
goat must die! Our heart cry is that someone would bring a living flame from
he altar of God to torch any dead thing that defiles us? Loving a dead thing
is a form of spiritual necrophilia which is an obsession with dead things!
Jesus said in Luke
5:36-39, “No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if
otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out
of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old
bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the
bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both
are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new:
for he saith, the old is better.” |
